Dirge Danorum
by Hauuu
Summary: Picking up where FREEDOM left off, Dirge Danorum follows Mist and company on their most dangerous and eventful journey yet. The Zone is changing; they can either change with it, or fall by the wayside.
1. Chapter 1

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 1

[Author's Note – Dirge Danorum follows FREEDOM, which follows THE WAY HOME. Both are available, mostly, on FF – and also at pseudozone dot blogspot dot com – the story is pretty developed at this part, and might be difficult to follow without being caught up on what's come before. Thanks for reading.]

I wasn't dozing. Dozing would suggest I actually got some rest. No, I was just sitting with my back against the wall of Grigor's cottage, resting my eyes. It was pleasantly warm, and that was worth something. Maybe under different circumstances, I would have wanted to sleep.

Grigor had given up his cot to Velvet, and last I'd noticed, he'd been quietly packing things from around his little home. After all, he had agreed to come with us.

Now it was morning. There wasn't anything sudden about it. Velvet was by the window, sort of letting down her fatigues in the back, and looking over her shoulder at her reflection, trying to see the tattoo. She was kind of wiggling around on her toes to get a better look, and also trying not to let her fatigues slip down too far. Heaven forbid anyone see her bare back.

I got tired of watching her do that, so I got up and went over. "Stop it," I said, and took out my PDA. I snapped a picture of the exposed portion of her back and showed it to her. She gave me a reproving glare – of course she'd stiffened up the moment I touched her – but took the PDA and looked at it. She stared for a couple of moments then handed back, looking resigned.

"You should've talked about the font before you signed off on it," I said. She punched me in the gut. I looked over to see Grigor checking over a Mosin-Nagant. At the time I couldn't have told anything more than that it looked ancient, and that it was some kind of bolt action thing. Now, I know it was an 1891/30, if you're the kind of person who cares about that stuff. He loaded a clip of intimidatingly large looking bullets into it, and slung it over his shoulder. Then he donned his pack – also quite ancient, and put his canteen around his neck.

"Is that all you need?" Velvet asked, hands on her hips. She looked around the cottage. He didn't have a lot of things, but he was still leaving quite a bit behind.

"For travel, yes. What I require for my work, what I cannot scavenge at Yantar, I will require you to provide."

"Done." Velvet picked up her pack and her MPL. She paused, looking at me. "You don't look so good," she said.

"You look nice."

She gave me a funny look, then shrugged. We left the cabin. Grigor didn't seem very attached to anything in it, and Velvet had been quick to accept his terms. She seriously believed she needed him to make this work. And maybe she did. I didn't know better. I felt like I was always either giving her too much credit or not enough. There are people you can pin down, and there are people like Velvet.

The world from before was gone. There was no fog, no titanic gears, no abandoned carnival to find our way through – just breezy grassland. The world that Velvet and I had found our way through to reach Grigor wasn't an illusion. It was a real place – just not this place.

Velvet paused to orientate herself, but Grigor put his hand over her compass.

"No need," he said gently.

"Why not?"

"Leaving the valley isn't as simple as just walking out."

"What do you mean?"

"It can't be explained. You'll have to see it for yourself."

Now that there was no fog, it was like we could see for miles – but that was impossible, because there were no trees. The prairie seemed to go on forever. That was all right for me. I found the walk restful, and I couldn't complain about the company. Grigor and I had only just met, but I liked the old timer. I liked him in spite of things.

I'd lost my carbine to the Blood Demon, but that didn't bother me. I could always get another weapon – but it wasn't just that. The change was on a deeper level. Having no weapon wasn't a problem, because this place wasn't here to be fought.

I wondered how much danger there would be in the Zone if every stalker just put down his weapons. I had my suspicions.

Change was coming.

I understood now, why people avoid places like the Valley. I hoped I would never have to come back here. No, that wasn't true. It wasn't this place I hated, it was what I had to do to get here. It wasn't the Valley, it was the road. The toll was too high. I hadn't been able to afford it the first time, not really. Doing it again? Impossible.

There were no anomalies to watch for. The Valley was the anomaly. There was nothing to fear, and the only worry was to remember to put one foot in front of the other. Grigor didn't seem to be one for light conversation, and Velvet was understandably subdued.

I felt a certain familiarity here. Following people who had been in this place longer than I had, taking them at their word, not even knowing where I was going. The fact that I could do this at all meant I had changed. Certainty was no longer a part of my life. I'd given it all up. For this year, I wasn't myself anymore. I was like one of the Apostles, putting everything down to follow. Only it wasn't the son of God I was following. And it wasn't Velvet either, though I was always staring at her back. I couldn't see the tattoo through the fabric of her fatigues, but I knew what it looked like. Everything had changed. The Zone wasn't what it used to be, and neither was I.

The Morton Stalker was walking beside me, though of course, he made no sound in the tall grass. I looked down at my hand, and peeled away my glove. The black spot was bigger now. Before I hadn't been sure of it, but now I was. It was growing.

I pulled my glove back on and reached into my pocket. The spheres were still there. I took them out and looked at them in my palm. Their surfaces no longer swirled with color. They were deep black, now, but there was a depth to them – as though they were a window to another place entirely. I realized I was being pulled in. They were forcing me to stare, to lean down to look closer. I closed my hand and put them back in my pocket.

I touched Lunch Box. The pistol weight almost five pounds, but in my right hand it felt like a toy.

But the changes that had already taken hold were nothing compared to what was coming.

And speaking of changes, we were undergoing another one. It was barely noticeable, but I realized with a start that we'd left the Valley. We'd left the Valley without ever taking one step uphill. Velvet noticed as well, because she stopped. The Morton Stalker was gone.

The sky was no longer sunny. It was gray and cloudy, and I couldn't remember how it had gotten that way. There were buildings in the distance, and I didn't recognize them. The grass we were walking in wasn't the soft, green stuff from the Valley, it was the harsh, brown, irradiated stuff from the outside. I spotted a nebulous anomaly overhead, shifting in and out, warping the light around it. It wasn't even warm anymore. It was downright chilly.

Velvet said a few words in what sounded to me like German, but I would later learn was her native Norwegian. Hey, look – European languages aren't my thing, all right? There are German-sounding languages, and there are… other ones. I'm Canadian for crying out loud, and I've spent so much time in America that I spell words like they do. So don't look at me like that.

"What just happened?" This time she asked in English. Grigor turned back.

"The Valley is not in the Forest," he said calmly. "Only the road."

As I thought. Velvet took that in. "So where are we now?"

"Northeast of the Plant," he replied, pointing. Indeed, off in the distance was the dark patch on the horizon that represented Chernobyl NPP. My compass confirmed it. We were far north.

This was Day Eight.


	2. Chapter 2

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 2

The north. Rarely traveled. Negligibly documented. Well-cordoned. That's all I know. Ask more seasoned people, and you'll get the same thing. It wasn't just how far north we were – but how far east. We were on the wrong side of the Channel.

Velvet didn't look thrilled. She was reaching all the same conclusions. Grigor didn't seem troubled, but that was because he was looking around with interest. How long had he been in the Valley? How long since he had seen the outside? I wouldn't ask. The pleasure he got out of seeing what was around him was indication enough.

"Signal's dodgy out here." Velvet shook her PDA. "We have to get closer before I can contact the Biker."

"Forget that – how are we going to get across the Channel?"

"Let's get there first." I had a something to say to that, but I resisted the urge. She didn't need this any more than I did.

The buildings looked farther away than they were, and we reached them by midday. Huge, industrial complexes. Towering apartment blocks. Empty, forgotten streets. I kept an eye on my Geiger counter, but I had a feeling radiation wasn't what we had to fear. My right hand had begun to tingle as soon as we stepped onto pavement. I now had a good grasp of its function as an indicator of danger – but I didn't need to say anything. Velvet didn't have her finger on the trigger, but her MPL was at the ready. What I needed an anomalous hand for, her instincts could do on their own. She'd been here for almost ten years.

"You should stop her," the Morton Stalker said.

"From what?" I didn't say it aloud.

"From running."

"I know what she's running from. And I don't blame her."

My hand was at my side. Sometimes my gloved fingers would brush the handle of Lunch Box. My hand wanted to pull it out. The tingling grew stronger. I gave Grigor a warning look, and he returned it. He was subtly scanning the enormous buildings all around us.

"She can't run forever. Look what she's done to herself."

"Anyone would do the same."

"No, anyone would just eat a bullet. She came here. Why did she come here? Why didn't she just check out?"

"Too proud, maybe." I slipped my left hand into my vest, feeling the letter there. "Or maybe she just wants what every other stalker wants."

"According to who? To Grigor? Or to you?"

"Either one."

"You better pay attention."

He was right. I pulled Lunch Box out, but kept it at my side. "Should we go indoors?" We all felt it. We weren't alone. The empty streets made for some eerie acoustics, and the only sound was our footfalls – but they weren't kidding anybody. They were out there.

"Drinkers?" Grigor looked serious, but not fearful. He still had his Nagant slung, but there was a TT-33 in his belt, and his hand was sort of resting on it.

"Maybe," Velvet said. "If so, we should be safe as long as it's light." She was trying to sound confident.

"Cultists?" I smiled.

"God," she sighed. "I hope not."

"We are being observed." Now there was a hint of worry in Grigor's voice.

"Where?"

"There." He indicated the rooftop with his eyes.

"Inside it is," Velvet said, motioning.

The apartment block no longer had a door, so getting in wasn't a problem – but there was very little ambient light. We all got out flashlights, but they seemed pale and insignificant in the dark.

"Hall's blocked," I reported. My hand was throbbing now. That either meant the enemy outside was closing in, or that coming in here hadn't been such a hot idea. I'd find out which it was soon enough. Lunch Box in hand, I cast about with the light. The walls were covered in ugly graffiti. There were elevators, but those weren't an option.

"Stairs," Grigor called, and I homed in on his voice. The stairwell was filthy, but clear of debris. There were no windows, which meant no light – but after my brush with the caverns deep beneath the Channel, I just wasn't intimidated by the dark the way I'd once been.

We made our way through the building prudently, but not fearfully. I remembered how I felt when Sagaris and I had been in a similar situation. I'd been less jaded then, I supposed, because I'd been scared to death. But here and now, with two experienced stalkers at my side, things were different. It was only day eight, but already I was thinking that I could handle anything this place could throw at me.

That was a dangerous attitude to take, but I felt like it was only partly coming from me.

Regardless, someone was stalking us, and even if my foolish instinct was to laugh it off, I knew perfectly well that I needed to take this seriously. It was too quiet here. If there were drinkers around, we'd hear them even if we didn't see them.

If it was far-flung bandits, why hadn't they fired earlier? We'd been easy targets in the street.

Mercs who weren't in the mood for trouble might watch us closely, but let us pass – but mercs need work, and there wasn't any work on this side of the Channel, so they wouldn't be here in the first place. The same went for loners – they'd watch without firing, but what would they be doing here?

Gradually, I thinned down the list of possibilities as I followed Grigor and Velvet through the building. The place was filthy and broken down. There was dust everywhere. Radiators had rusted and fallen away from the walls to trip us, and great metal staircases groaned as we passed. But there wasn't much in the way of anomalous material around. Some glowing fungus that didn't look too threatening, and some plant-like material stretched across a few doorways, but that was it.

This was a building on the outskirts of the Zone, but it was not a hotspot. There was nothing here for stalkers to find; and that meant there were no stalkers here for the mutants to eat, so they wouldn't be around either.

"Whoever it is out there," I said. "It's not the usual suspects."

"I think you're right."

"Are there any remnants left?"

"Not this far in," Grigor replied.

"Who would be this close – and yet this far?" Velvet mused. "Cut off from the outside, but not far enough in to do anything."

"You say that from a fixed perspective," Grigor said mildly. "Even if there is nothing out here for you to do, how can you speak for others?"

"True enough."

"This is it." We entered a room with several large windows looking out into the street. We could climb out easily. Warily, we considered the stillness outside. "They have the high ground," I warned.

Grigor checked the sacking covering his rifle. "We could move up as well."

"No – if they're up there, and they realize we're coming up, that might look confrontational. We might start an unnecessary fight. If these people wanted to shoot us, they had their chance."

"What do you want to do?"

She considered it. "We walk out."

She'd weighed the risks – but she'd done so more kindly than I would have. Her determination to give other people the benefit of the doubt to avoid conflict was going to be the death of us. Of course, if this wasn't who she was, I wouldn't have cared if she got herself killed.

"What if we run?" I didn't get an answer, because there was movement in the street. I pushed Velvet out of sight and melted into the shadows, squinting out.

A figure had emerged from the building across the street. He was looking left and right, unsure of where we were. He wore blue jeans and a red flannel shirt, underneath a very civilian-looking parka. He was a little older than I was, and a little overweight. It was clear from the outset that he wasn't a stalker. He looked apprehensive.

"I'm going to talk to him," I said quietly, watching the man. He was waiting in the middle of the street, hands raised.

"I'll talk to him," Velvet corrected, pushing past me. I grabbed her by the back of her vest and yanked her back.

"The hell you are."

"Hey," she said, looking indignant, "Who's in charge here?"

I pushed her at Grigor. "Watch her." I slipped out the window and started forward. "You lost?" I asked, loudly enough to get him to turn around. I was closing in fast, and he looked intimidated. And I know exactly what I looked like – all in black, pale, big dark circles under my eyes, not wearing a very friendly expression, ridiculously large pistol in hand – but the reaction was too strong. He should've been taken aback at the sight of me, but not openly terrified. Something was wrong. I felt something strike my vest. I pulled it out. A little needle, its tip bent. So that was his game.

Another one hit me in the neck, but I wasn't paying attention. That was the plan – lure us out with the white flag, hit us from behind. And they'd already gotten me. But not for free. I could feel the stuff acting fast, but not fast enough. I leveled Lunch Box at him.

"Hey man," he said, shaking his head. He sounded American. I blew a hole in his chest and blacked out.


	3. Chapter 3

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 3

It was no surprise that I was the first to come around. After all, my body wasn't entirely my own anymore. My hands weren't tied, but I was in darkness, and I wasn't by myself. My head was fuzzy, and it hurt – but I knew I had to capitalize on this opportunity. A little fumbling around told me everything I needed to know about my situation.

There was shouting. I found the doors and threw them open, climbing out of the back of the van.

I was in a large, concrete room. It had been a garage at one time, but not anymore. There were tables and equipment everywhere. People, too – and they were in an uproar. Not stalkers, civilians. One of them had noticed me emerge, and he was going for a gun on one of the tables.

"Freeze!"

"Or you'll what?" I demanded, launching myself off the nearest table. I came down, smashing him in the chest with my elbow. There was a loud crunch, and the civilian went down with a scream.

At that moment a nearby door burst open, and it was at these that the other guys had been looking. Then they'd turned toward me when I'd taken down their friend, and their focus was broken. A stalker in white fatigues and a black vest came through, a pistol raised in both hands. He shot the nearest man twice without hesitation, then pivoted and fired twice more, felling another. One of them got a shot off, but these guys weren't fighters.

I dodged under a gun and grabbed a man by the neck, lifting him off his feet and squeezing. His spine snapped in my grip, and I let him fall.

The stalker in white had fired a couple more shots, and suddenly we were the only two standing. I heard a magazine clatter to the ground, and turned to see him slam in a new one, release the slide, and take aim at me. I didn't put my hands up. He'd seen me take down two of them; he had to conclude I was on his side. Besides, though my weapons were gone, I was still wearing my armor. I was clearly a stalker, and these men were not.

It was a long moment. Finally, he pulled down his face mask.

"I know you," he said in English, and I recognized his voice. And his face. Duty. This man was Duty. We'd run into him a few days ago. He'd let us go.

He returned his CZ 100 to the holster in the small of his back.

"Did they bring you here?"

I had an urge to kill this man. But he wasn't threatening me, so I forced it down. "Yes," I replied warily. The effects of the tranquilizer were dying away.

"Right." He came forward. "Are you alone?"

"No, I have two more in the van."

The man from Duty was walking among the bodies, examining each. "Damn," he said finally.

"What is it?"

"He's not here."

"I'm right here." The voice came from speakers I couldn't see. I turned and looked at a strong door. Come to think of it, maybe someone had ducked through it during the chaos.

"Snug in the panic room, eh?" The Duty man put his hand on his hips and gazed at the door. "Well, there are ways around that."

"I didn't think you'd actually find us," said the voice from the speakers.

"I will not leave here while you are still alive."

"You're not going to leave here at all, buddy." There was something nasal and irritating about the voice. The guy had to be around my age. "You just changed it, but the game's still on."

For the briefest of seconds, the Duty man looked puzzled. "No," he said.

"Yes. Believe it. And I have everything I need in here."

"Have you got a Bible?"

"I left it at home."

"That was a mistake."

"Don't let me down." There was a crackle, and the feedback from the speakers died down. Someone had shut off the microphone.

"Let's see to your people," the Duty man said.

"Stop." I put up a hand.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You're not getting near them." I couldn't have him seeing Velvet. Or Grigor. He was Duty, and they were well-known Freedom figures. "Back off. Just get out of here."

"My work isn't finished."

"I'm not going to ask you again."

Things might've gotten ugly right there, but Velvet chose that moment to step groggily out of the van. "God, my head," she groaned, tottering toward us. I expected the Duty man to go for his gun, and I was ready to take him out – but he didn't.

"Ah, yes. The illustrious Commander. In the flesh."

She looked up, frowning. Her eyes focused on him. "Oh dear," she said.

"He's not going to hurt you," I said. And that got me a strange look from the Duty man.

"Ever?" That came from Grigor.

"We meet again." I relaxed. Surely if there was immediate danger, they'd be exchanging more than greetings.

"What's going on here?"

"You're either having awfully good luck or awfully bad luck, depending on how you want to look at it. I'm not here in an official capacity," he added, and this was directed at Velvet, who was looking at him with suspicion. "You're both unhurt. That's good."

"My head hurts."

"Your equipment is probably still in the van. You should take it and go."

Grigor had been gazing over the garage. Now he spoke. "Is this the tournament?"

"Yes."

"How did you locate it?"

"I've been paying informants for over a year. Sooner or later one of the leads was bound to pan out."

"How did you cross the Channel?"

"Hitched a ride."

"Duty has a chopper?" Velvet's eyes widened.

"Several. The military's been very kind to us. You shouldn't linger here."

"What are you going to do?"

"Finish it."

"Looks pretty finished," I stated flatly. I was beginning to put it together. This was one of the secret games, where people were kidnapped and forced to fight for survival as the wealthy watched over the web, gambling millions of dollars on human lives.

Before now, I hadn't been convinced the games were real. It looked like I had narrowly avoided becoming a contestant.

"No. The gauntlet is already prepared." Ever turned toward a pair of doors marked with black and yellow. "I killed the technicians and disabled the explosives, but there are still people in there."

"Players?"

"Props. There's only one way to get them out."

Velvet shook her head to clear it. "I thought these people had been hunted and killed ages ago. I thought they would have found another place to do this."

"My research indicates the games have taken to the Zone. Something about stalkers making the most resourceful participants." Ever's voice was even, but I got the impression that he did not hold these people in high regard. I think we were all in agreement on that one. I was filling in the blanks. This was monstrous. Suddenly the cold-blooded way this man had come in shooting made a lot more sense.

"Are you alone?" I asked him.

There was a flicker of a smile on his face. "Always."

"And you aren't acting as Duty?" Velvet pressed. I could see a familiar clarity in the blue of her eyes. She was focused and awake. That was good – because if I hadn't believed it, I'd have put my hand over her mouth to stop her from what I knew she was about to say.

"For today."

"Then you won't mind accepting help from Freedom."

"There is no Freedom."

"As of right now, there is. We're it."

"I can't pay you."

"I'm not asking you to."

Ever folded his arms. "I'll confess, I'm surprised. I haven't heard very flattering things about you, Commander."

"That might have to do with the company you keep."

"Perhaps it does at that."

"This is a big job. You need the help. These games are designed to kill. You don't seriously believe you can do this alone."

"You might be surprised at some of the things I believe."

"Are you turning me down?"

"No." Ever put out his hand. Velvet wouldn't take it. I blinked. She reached out and shook. I could see her jaw clenched as she did it, but she did. She released him quickly and stepped back. "We need to regroup. You need to secure this room."

"As you wish."

Velvet motioned to me and Grigor. Ever turned and moved away. "Is everyone okay?"

"How'd they bag you two?"I asked, cutting her off. Velvet looked guilty. She glanced at Grigor, who didn't meet her gaze. She cleared her throat. Oh, for crying out loud.

"What did you just sign us up for?"

"It's not going to be easy," she conceded. "But we have to do it. This is the moral foundation of my faction."

"There are no laws here," Grigor pointed out. "You will not be perpetuating liberty by taking action here. You'll be encroaching on it. These people, however twisted, are free to do as they please in this place."

"No," Velvet said sharply, and the look she gave Grigor was truly scary. "Freedom is a privilege for humans. These are animals. And liberty is exactly what we're going to give the people they have trapped here."

"Freedom is not an engine of one person's notion of justice. Freedom is impartial."

"Maybe not the old Freedom. Your brother didn't take sides – and look where that got him. The Zone is changing, and if Freedom's going to last this time, it's going to have to change with it. Get right with that, Grigor. I'm just getting started."


	4. Chapter 4

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 4

"We don't have a lot of time. It's getting dark out there. We may have hostiles on their way here, so we're going to extract any survivors from this building, and then move out right away," Velvet said.

Ever pointed at the two doors. "Two routes. We split into pairs and take both."

"What are we up against?"

"Traps. Not sophisticated, but cunning. Sadistic. There could also be live infected, and active resistance."

"What kind of resistance?"

"No telling. The only time I've ever seen one of these sites myself, it was nothing but rubble. My information is all secondhand. We have an advantage going in – we'll be equipped, and we know what we're up against. Traditionally, contestants are disoriented and unarmed. Even so, this is still a literal death trap, so take care." Ever folded his arms. "We'll be on camera. Don't let anything they may or may not say over the system rattle you. They don't want to kill us too quickly; they need us to give them a show." He gestured at the bodies. "This doesn't change anything. The man in there," he said, pointing, "Will try to salvage this. We're just willing participants instead of prisoners. He wants to make money with you, but he doesn't want you to come out alive. Keep that in mind."

"Is this the guy behind this thing?"

"He's one of them."

"He has to go," I stated flatly.

"He's already dead, he just doesn't know it," Velvet said.

"The living need our attention now," Ever cut in. "I suggest we scavenge what we can, then breach without delay. He does have communication, and he's probably called for help. We have to get in and out. Quickly," he added.

There wasn't much to scavenge. The technicians had no real weapons. Their handguns were brand new, but they'd been brought as token protection, not to really fight with. Maybe we'd take them with us to sell if we made it out of here alive, but they wouldn't do us any good where we were going.

None of the dead men were carrying any ID to speak of. There were several coolers full of food. It looked like they hadn't intended to be here long – and that made sense. They probably had other people prepare the building, and only then did these IT types come in and wire it for video and such.

I found the dart rifle that had been used to capture us. A powerful weapon in its own way, but I didn't see any darts for it, and once again, we had no need of it. There wasn't anything useful. Ever had been hoping for some kind of hardcopy layout, or a guide to the traps – but that all must've been in the computers, many of which had been destroyed in the brief shootout.

All of our gear was there, and I loaded up Lunch Box and holstered it at my hip. My right hip. I could remember when I couldn't do much of anything with my right hand. Now I was using it for everything.

I watched Grigor check his Tokarev. He had the right idea. His rifle wouldn't help him in there. Velvet worked her MPL's charging handle a couple of times, then tapped a long magazine on a table before inserting it.

This routine was no longer unfamiliar. Going to war with a building instead of an enemy – that part was new.

"You don't look so good."

I turned to Ever. He didn't either. There was some blood spatter on his white camo, and a stained bandage around his arm. His skin was pale, and his face was drawn. He was calm and poised, but his road to this place hadn't been any less eventful than mine.

He had on black gloves, but he was absently rubbing his left ring finger.

Everyone has a story. I didn't need to know his, and he certainly wasn't getting mine.

"When was the last time you slept?" he asked. I just smiled and flexed my hand.

"Why white?"

His eyes were flat. "What do I have to hide?"

"What's the matter? Never seen an Asian in the Ukraine before?"

"Actually, I have. You don't have to follow her."

"I don't have to listen to this, either."

"That's it, that's all the time we have." Velvet stepped over a body, halting in front of the doors. "Pairs." She turned and pointed one finger at me. "You and him. Me and Grigor. You take yellow. We're on black."

"Hell no. I'm going to protect you."

"Grigor is our meal ticket. I'm not letting him out of my sight. You're going with Ever, that's final. You're the only one that can handle him if he's not sincere. You don't have to do this, but if you're going to do it, you're doing it my way. You work for me, not with me."

I knew her well enough by now that I wasn't going to waste time arguing. Her reasoning was sound, even if it did make me angry. Ever could turn on Velvet or Grigor, but he couldn't turn on me. Not if he wanted to live. "I'll keep that in mind," I said.

"Do that." It sounded good, but she held my gaze for a few beats too long, and looked away too sharply. This was a nightmare.

I looked down. One of the technicians' revolvers was in my hand, crushed into a twisted paperweight. I dropped it, forcing my fingers to relax. No one had noticed.

Ever reached back and adjusted the holster in the small of his back, then stepped forward and pulled open the yellow door, giving me a questioning look.

"Be my guest,' I said. He stepped through, and I followed him. It was a heavy door, and it slammed shut, leaving us in complete darkness. We heard the dull slam of the black door. Velvet and Grigor were probably in a room just like this.

I reached for my flashlight, but Ever stopped me. "Don't bother."

The lights flickered on, and the broadcast system crackled to life. "All right, ladies and gentlemen. And all of you watching at home. This month's show has suffered some setbacks, but we're still on track. The game has changed, but it's still on. I'll be handling your commentary today, and you can call me Stan." He went on to lay out some wagering guidelines, talking about wire transfers, winnings, and escrow accounts.

This month's show, he'd said. They did this to people on a monthly basis?

"Two teams, both locked in. Those doors don't open, folks."

The room was small and cramped. The yellow door was firmly locked behind us. It wasn't unexpected. There were manacles on the walls; we were probably meant to be chained up in here, but that plan had died along with all the technicians.

The next door was sturdy metal, but it had a handle. Ever warily tried it. Locked. I couldn't see the camera, but there had to be one.

"Taking the high road, we have the Goddess and the Old Timer. And below, White Knight and Black Knight." I looked down at my black armor. At least I wasn't the Yellow Knight. Then I'd really have had to kill that guy. "They're in for the long haul, well equipped, well prepared, and with a completely different set of objectives than your usual – yet I think the desire for survival is a constant. What these two teams didn't know before they opened the doors, is that only one team can leave. And for the other team, we have a variety of pre-owned coffins."

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Ever murmured, though I hadn't reacted visibly to the statement. I'd expected something like this. There were still unknown quantities here. I wasn't worried. Yet.

"Initial wagers are in. The odds are calculated. Lay in, dear viewers – because we're about to start the show."

There was a snap, and a hum. The lights flickered, then stabilized. The building rumbled, and there was a lot of loud clanking in the walls.

I heard a bolt rasp out of place in the door. It was unlocked. Ever put his hand on the knob.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Room One," Stan announced.


	5. Chapter 5

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 5

The room was a little too perfectly square. They'd put in walls and painted over everything; the people who had set up this game had no problem altering the architecture to suit their needs. The effect was claustrophobic. The little antechamber had been cramped, barely larger than a closet. This room was a little bigger, but still not large. Going from one small chamber to another, without halls or windows – it was having the intended effect.

The lights were already on. Stan had fallen silent for the moment. My attention was immediately drawn to the ceiling, where there appeared to be writing – but it was upside down. I'd be able to read it more easily from the other side of the room. There were also dozens of air fresheners hanging from strings.

Ever caught me and held me fast before I could step forward. I confess, I was feeling a little venomous – Velvet and I were both still simmering – and I almost punched him right there. But I was at least partially in control, and I managed to only give him an unfriendly look.

"Why be so gaudy with the ceiling?" he wondered aloud. "Obviously the first thing you want to do is read it. And it's easier from over there." He was stroking his chin. He looked down. "It's to draw your attention away from the floor. The trap is down here." He sank to a crouch and looked at the tiles. It was a simple pattern of light and dark. "Do you see any irregularities?"

I shook my head. It looked like an ordinary floor. But as much as I hated to admit it, I felt like Ever had a point.

"And the air freshener?" I asked. The smell of mint was powerful, almost nauseating.

"To conceal the odor of whatever we need to be afraid of." He still didn't get up. He reached out and placed his fingers on a dark tile, probing gingerly. It was clear to me that he wasn't keen to walk across this room either.

I looked up. There were loops made of what looked like bent rebar protruding from the ceiling. The air fresheners were tied to them. They were obviously intended to be used to get across. They wouldn't be easy on the hands, but they would do it. Ever was thinking the same thing.

"Seems straightforward enough," he said.

"Assuming you're right." And the rebar wasn't weakened or something. I pictured myself swinging to the next one only to have it come away in my hand, leaving me stranded. Stranded in the middle of such a small room.

"Well, fellas."

We both tensed at the voice, looking up.

"Relax, boys. It's just you and me – not the viewers, not your friends. Having a little trouble with Room One? I don't blame you. Let's not beat around the bush. Is it what it looks like, or is there a double blind? There's always a way out, but don't let that make you think the game's fair. If you want to know, I always wished they'd make it more legit – but when we went in that direction, too many people kept making it out alive. The viewers didn't like it. They want blood. So here we are with the lamer, meaner gags. My boss, who you killed, by the way – would always tell the viewers that luck was a component of a man's ability to survive. I don't buy it. Everybody's betting on Goddess. I don't blame them; I'd bet on her too. Hell, I'd do a lot of things on her. Maybe I will, if she doesn't get herself killed. Anyway, nice chatting. Good luck."

"I don't like that man," Ever noted mildly.

"He's dead."

"I believe we're all in agreement on that." He glanced over at me. "Pity. I'd have preferred to be the Black Knight."

"What do you care?"

"It's aesthetics. I'm not a real Englishman, but everyone thinks I am. It's Arthurian. I like it."

"So next time wear black."

"Maybe I will."

"You ready for this?"

"You doubt my upper body strength?"

"The high road, then."

"Wait." Ever put up his hand. "When you put it that way, I'm not sure."

"What do you mean?"

"Remember – remember what he said. The Commander and Grigor are taking the high road. We're on the low road."

I thought back. He had said that. "What are you thinking?"

"It may be relevant."

"We don't want to outthink ourselves on this one."

"I agree." Ever was rubbing his wedding ring again.

"Is she still alive?"

He looked at me for a moment with one eyebrow raised, then down at his hands. He sighed. "Yes."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"Doing?" He met my gaze. "I'm doing my time."

"You decide. You've been here longer than I have."

"Right." He straightened, rubbing his chin. "The high road, then."

"Why?"

"When in doubt, take the high road."

"Good enough for me."

"Now, who goes first?"

"Got a coin we can flip?"

"We can use my ring. Heads or tails?"

I watched him take off his glove. "How's a ring got heads or tails?"

"It's got an inscription."

"Heads, then."

"Right." Ever flipped the ring. It sparkled in the fluorescent light. He caught it and trapped it. "Oh, you win. I suppose I'll go first."

"Wait a minute, you didn't even look."

"Yes I did."

"No, you didn't. You didn't look."

"I'll have you know I'm quite familiar with this ring."

"You just want to go first."

"What? That's ridiculous."

"I'll bet there is no inscription. I'm going first."

"Be my guest."

I cocked my head. "Is this a trick?"

"I can go first if you like."

I stared at him for a second. "You're in the Zone, in a death trap, and you're trolling a complete stranger?"

"Well, I haven't got anyone else handy, have I?"

"I can see why your marriage isn't working out."

"I'll have you know I was the one who left."

"Then why do you still wear the ring?"

"Because I didn't want to leave."

"Whatever. The hell with you. You're nuts." I gestured. "Go on."

He reached up and took the first hand hold. No hesitation at all. I didn't know this man, but he worried me, and not because of his Duty patch. His calm, especially. He had instincts – he had to, if he'd been alive in the Zone long enough. Why wasn't he more afraid of me? Or was he just really good at hiding it?

I watched him make his way across. He didn't seem to have much trouble. No surprise there; it was just like using a jungle gym. He made it to the other side and dropped down. Nothing happened. He was fine. He turned around, shrugging. "They felt solid to me," he reported. "You're lighter than I am. You should be all right."

He said all this in a normal tone, but I felt like he was calling to me over a chasm. That was my instinct talking. There was no chasm, but it was telling me there was one. The high road was the right road. I looked at the tiles. The trap was there. Walking out into the room to read the writing on the ceiling would trigger it – whatever it was.

I jumped up and made my way across. All I had to do was make sure my right hand didn't accidentally pull a grip out of the concrete. I dropped down beside Ever, turning to look at the floor, then at the ceiling.

"Would you kindly," I read aloud.

"I don't know what it means either."

"Weird. But you'd have to be weird to run a place like this." I shrugged.

"Too right."

"Aren't you curious?"

"If we must." Ever turned, pulling his CZ 100. He pointed it at the floor in the center of the room and squeezed the trigger. The shot was louder than normal in the small room, and a tile fragmented. Yellow fluid spurted from the break, falling in drops to sizzle on nearby tiles.

"Acid," I said. "How could they hurt us with acid underneath the floor?"

Ever holstered the pistol. "They've cut the tiles." He demonstrated with his hand, slanting one and placing it against the other. "With a plastic base, the acid will serve as a lubricant. If we walk on them, we'll slip and fall, breaking other tiles and immersing ourselves."

"There can't be much of it down there."

"You think navigating these traps is going to be difficult as we are? Imagine trying to do it covered in burns. It's not meant to be lethal – they don't want to kill us too early. But there's no reason not to make with the suffering from the start."

"Yeah." I stared at the tendrils of smoke rising from the break. The air freshener couldn't hold it back now; the stench was powerful. "These guys aren't earning a lot of points with me."

"Quite."

"Ladies and gentlemen – there you have it. White Knight and Black Knight lagging behind, but through Room One without a scratch. Both teams are ready to advance. Check your winnings, check the new odds, and place your bets – we got more where this comes from. Room Two. You ready for this? The doors unlock in five, four, three, two, and one."


	6. Chapter 6

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 6

It was a lot to take in. The man – or possibly boy – was strung up several feet off the ground. Wearing only a pair of slightly ridiculous boxer shorts, he was shivering noticeably. His skin was pale. Whoever he was, he was definitely on the small side. A blindfold covered his eyes, and he was gagged. A number of leads attached to his chest fed into a plastic tube that ran to the ceiling, then to a small cage. In the cage was a block of Semtex.

Beneath him was a solidly-constructed metal funnel, and a control panel. Some kind of arm with a blade protruded from the machine.

A door at the far end of the room was closed. It had no handle.

Ever immediately sank to a crouch, scanning the floor carefully. He was right, of course – the bound man drew the eyes, just like in the last room. It would've been easy to miss something with my attention focused on him.

Finding nothing that troubled him, Ever rose to his feet, and I glanced at the ceiling. It was just a ceiling. Dingy, but not concealing any tricks.

"I love a good puzzle," Ever said, moving closer.

"There's nothing good about this."

"True enough."

"You think he's all right?"

"He doesn't appear injured." Ever clasped his hands behind his back and looked on. I needed to follow his lead. Slow and steady would win the race. We didn't need to rush, as much as I wanted to.

The guy in the trap had tensed. He was listening to us talk. "Relax," I said. "We're on your side. Just keep cool."

"Right, then. Looks straightforward enough to me."

"It does?" I looked at the bizarre machinery and the hanging man. "What about this is straightforward?"

"Oh – ladies and gentlemen, I hope you're seeing this! A round of applause for the Goddess, turning all our expectations upside down since ten minutes ago. And the Old Timer too – he's more than just an ugly face, isn't he?"

I tuned Stan out and focused on Ever. "Come on."

Ever tapped the funnel. "There's a scale in here. When there's enough weight, the door will open."

"Weight?"

"Weight."

"But it's a funnel. What do we weight it down with?"

"Fluid."

"Like Die Hard?"

"What?"

"Die Hard."

"I don't follow."

"You know. Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson had to do the thing with the water – they had to get the right water in the thing, so the bomb wouldn't go off? You don't remember? The third movie?"

"Clearly not."

"Where do we get the weight?"

Ever sighed. "I think we have an edge there – no pun intended. The fluid comes from this man. We operate this device, not unlike the games where you're conned out of your money with the promise of being able to pick up a plush toy with a sadistically ineffectual crane."

"Oh, like that – with the knife? I see. We bleed him."

At this, the tied up man started to struggle.

"Oh, do stop it," Ever groaned. "We're not going to do it."

"We're not?" I shook my head. Of course we weren't.

"Think, Mist – we're supposed to be here without equipment. Probably without clothes. That would make either our blood, or his, the only possible options. Even if we had boots or clothing, we wouldn't be able to use them, because the funnel is so narrow."

"But what have we got?"

"Our canteens, for one."

That was a good thought. We both emptied them into the funnel. Nothing happened. "Not enough."

"No." Ever considered the problem. He was patting himself down. "But we're not limited to fluid. There's more – the weight required can't be too substantial. You see that explosive? If his life signs stop, they'll detonate. We're meant to slit him up, but not too much – we can't kill him, or we kill ourselves. And to do it with that robotic blade – you know, I think that'd be quite nerve-wracking. I'd be uncomfortable trying to precision-bleed someone with a scalpel. But with that? Outrageous."

"Uncomfortable?" I said, raising an eyebrow. He didn't hear me. He was holding his CZ 100. I caught on. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Yes, I'm wondering why my luck is so poor."

"What do you mean?"

"Look. The diameter of the funnel. Your cartridges won't fit, but mine will. I have to disarm. You don't have the option."

"Oh."

"And why do you carry such a weapon? Freud?"

"You're just jealous."

He ejected the magazine from the CZ and began to thumb out the bullets, feeding them into the funnel. I thought about small things that I had, and didn't come up with much. Just like Ever said, .44 cartridges were too big. We'd both left our bags behind, so all we had was what was in our magazine holders. Or rather, what Ever had. It wasn't much. His last bullet went in, and nothing happened.

"This isn't fair – how much blood could they expect a shrimp like this to have?" I demanded. "What do we do now, spit in it?"

"Let's try to think of something more dignified." Ever paused, turning to look at the door. "We may have gotten ahead of ourselves."

"How do you mean?"

"Suppose we do provide sufficient weight – the door will open. But our young friend will still be trussed up here. Only half of our problem will be solved."

"I see what you mean. Then how does he get out?"

"He doesn't. After we carve him up, obviously he's going to bleed out completely, hanging that way. Presumably we escape the room before he does, because then the explosives go off. If we make a bad cut and he dies, they go off. He dies in every scenario. They don't want him getting out."

"Well, we've got to disarm that bomb."

"Can't get at it. Even with knives, that's solid. They weren't taking chances. They'll have a unique tool that's absolutely necessary to get it down."

"Unique tool?"

"Like – not unlike the principle of a tire key."

"Ah." I nodded. "Okay, well – you want a unique tool? I'll show you a unique tool." I walked over, reached up, and took hold of the cage with my right hand. I squeezed. The metal folded in my hand like it was wax. I tore the entire fixture out and threw it aside. It clanged loudly to the floor, sending up some dust.

Ever gave me a peculiar look. "What's she been feeding you?" he asked finally.

"Can you fix it or not?"

"Of course I can." He flicked out a knife and stepped past me, reaching up. It only took him ten seconds or so, and he had the little bundle in his hand. He eyed it for a moment, then set it down on the floor. "That's one threat eliminated. We can cut him down safely now."

We did so, and took away his blindfold and gag. It was hard to believe, but I was looking at another Asian in the Zone. I can tell you, that's something I didn't expect to do. I mean, you see a black stalker from time to time – but it would've been easy to convince me I was the only guy of oriental descent in the whole Ukraine.

"You got any water?" the little man croaked. Ever and I exchanged glances. We'd just emptied our canteens into the machine.

"No," I replied. "Sorry." We'd wasted our bullets and our water for nothing.

"Don't talk. Just follow us. We'll get you out of here," Ever said. Then he raised an eyebrow. "What are you still doing in the Zone? I thought you were dead or gone."

The little man licked his lips and shrugged. "Yeah," he said.

"Venge, Mist. Mist, Venge."

I took off my upper armor and gave it to him. We were indoors. My thermal would be enough. I wasn't going to give this guy my pants, though. Velvet's spare fatigues would probably fit him pretty well. Actually, they'd be loose on him. I focused. "We still aren't out of this room," I pointed out.

"Indeed." Ever went over to the door and tapped on it. "Solid." He put his ear to it. "Nothing overt."

"Can we try to force it?"

"I doubt it. There are probably countermeasures in any case."

"But you have an idea."

"Of course I do." He stepped to the right, looking at the wall beside the door. Ever rubbed at it with one gloved hand, and dust fell away. "It's crumbling."

"So?"

"So, there will be a trap on the door, but not on the walls, and the walls are crumbling." He pointed at the Desert Eagle. "Use that to put a hole in the wall. We'll use that to blast through." He pointed at the explosive.

I pulled out Lunch Box and hefted it. He was a right. If the wall was as crumbly as it looked, the .44 would be more than enough to put a nice hole in it. Enough to wedge the bomb in there and detonate it without killing ourselves. Venge covered his ears.

I lifted the pistol and fired three shots, feeling no recoil to speak of, but halfway deafening myself.

"My word," Ever said. "I should get one of those. Really puts the fear of God in you."

"…ladies and gentlemen, White Knight and Black Knight going way outside the lines, coloring all over the page, adding people to their party, shooting up the building, doing it big, and we love it, folks. After that little trick, I see Black Knight as the new favorite, beating Goddess by a touchy twelve percent…"


	7. Chapter 7

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 7

"Is this going to kill us?"

"I don't think so."

"Can't you try to sound a little more confident?"

"The explosion is meant to kill people in the room, but they don't want to level the building – not until the game's over. And they can't anyway, I disabled those charges."

"Will the wall really protect us?"

"Protect us, no – but it will redirect the blast away from us. A bit."

"How do we set it off?"

"All that talk of Die Hard and you have to ask?"

I frowned. "I don't follow."

"Shoot it. I'm out of bullets."

"I don't think he does that in Die Hard."

"It's still an action cinema trope."

"Whatever. It's a good thing it isn't C4, or this wouldn't work." I raised Lunch Box and took aim. "I'm not made of bullets, you know." I fired. Not my finest moment.

I'm not even going to tell you about it. I don't want to. Ears ringing, we picked ourselves up, coughing and brushing off dust. In retrospect, I'm absolutely certain we could've found a better way to deal with that situation.

"I'll tell my wife about this someday," Ever gasped. "And she'll just shake her head."

"I know how you feel. Venge? Venge." He was still in one piece.

"Gentlemen, I propose we tell no one about this. To do so would be remiss in our duty to perpetuate the myth that men are not idiots."

"Right," I said hoarsely, combing debris from my hair.

"Oh, but don't count team Black and White out just yet!" Stan was shouting, sounding very pleased that we'd survived. Well, that was nice of him. It sounded like things were starting to get hype.

The hole in the wall was impressive. "Ready?"

I looked at Ever, and he looked back. "What?" he said.

We went through. Stan must've been controlling the lights, because they came on as soon as we entered. Stan was announcing Room Three for us, but apparently Velvet and Grigor were still on Room Two. That didn't sound good, but what was ahead of me had my full attention. These guys sure knew how to make rooms that grabbed you.

The wall was gone. There was a gap, and darkness, then a dim doorway. After making the customary checks, Ever and I advanced to the edge. We had our flashlights, but if we'd been there as the game intended, we'd have had no way to know how far down it went. In was more than two stories; our lights didn't reach the bottom. We'd only come up one flight of stairs, which meant that it bottomed out in some kind of sublevel. In any case, it was deep enough that we didn't want to fall. The height probably wouldn't be enough to kill, but I was sure there was something down there to make sure.

The darkness extended in either direction, and smooth concrete had been put in around the doorways. We couldn't try to climb around.

The only way to clear this gap was a blind jump. There was no elaborate machinery, just the jump, and the doorway on the far side.

"Subtle," Ever observed, sounding vaguely approving.

"What is wrong with you, man?"

He turned to me, and abruptly I wasn't looking at the room anymore. I was seeing a nice, but not lavish hotel room. The Biker was there, and so was Ever. They were dressed in civilian clothes. The Biker was dressed, well, like a biker – but more like a real American one. And Ever was wearing a very handsome suit. And sitting in a wheelchair. The Biker had just asked almost the exact same question I had. Ever looked up and smiled.

"Why, Frank – whatever do you mean?" he asked.

Then I was back in the room. I blinked several times, refocusing on Ever, who was looking at me curiously.

"Whatever do you mean?" he asked.

"Nothing," I said, shaking my head. What had that been about? "What do you think of this?" I was too shaken to admonish him for trolling.

"Obviously we're meant to jump across. It's made clear to us that the landing is safe – so that leaves only the jump." He pointed his light up. "And no trap there, either. It may be a bluff – there may be no danger at all. We would finally work ourselves up and jump across, and landing safely, we would feel relieved – and that was where the other shoe would drop. That could be the case."

"Or there might be a trap right here."

"I suspect there is. But I do like this one. Very Kafka. Kafkaesque, as you Americans would say."

"I'm not technically American."

"Oh, do forgive me."

"I am," Venge said.

"Right. Let's put ourselves in the shoes of our captors."

There was a dull thud elsewhere in the building, ahead.

"Oho!" Stan burst out. "That's a game changer – the odds shift again! Bet accordingly now, folks!"

I grimaced. "How?"

"If we wanted to lay a trap here, how would we do it?"

"Pressure plate on the landing."

"But that's unavoidable."

"I guess."

"Whatever they have here, it must be possible for us to avoid it, at least in theory." He glanced back at Venge. "It may also be intended to capitalize on whatever harm we've incurred before. Like acid burns."

"How?"

"I'm not sure yet." Ever took off his empty canteen and let it hang from its strap. He went to the edge and swung it out into the dark. Nothing happened. He held out his hand to me, and I took it, bracing him as he leaned out to swing it again. I didn't see what happened, but I heard the canteen go clanging into the depths.

"Well then," he said, after he'd stepped back, swallowing. "How charming."

"What happened?"

He held up the strap. "I think there's a wire."

"A wire that could cut through that?"

"Yes."

"Why can't we see it?"

"Because it's not framed in the light. It's there." He pointed. "In the dark."

"If we tried to jump across, we'd be cut in half."

"If we jumped carelessly, yes. But we can clear it easily, now that we know it's there. It just wouldn't be fun to do if we were, say, covered in acid burns."

"Right. So who goes first?"

"I do. I have the best idea of where it is. You'll have to follow me. Can you make it?" This was directed at Venge.

He considered the gap. He was probably a little weakened, but he nodded. "So we're like diving?" he said.

"Something like that." Ever patted himself down, then stepped back, focusing on a spot in the darkness that I couldn't see. I knew he couldn't see the wire, but he knew it was there, and like he said, he had the best idea of where it was. I had to grudgingly admit he had some nerve.

I watched him carefully as he jumped, though I really wanted to close my eyes. I didn't know this guy, but I didn't want to see him get sliced in half. If you want to know the truth, I felt like I'd seen enough bad things happen to people. I wanted to see something good for a change. But what were the odds of that in the Zone?

Ever hit, rolled, and came to his feet, immediately crouching. After a long moment, he turned back. "Looks clear."

"Looks clear like, like Vin Diesel saying it looks clear – or does it really look clear?"

"What the devil are you on about?"

"Nothing. I'm next," I told Venge, and stepped up to the edge. Well, I was as ready for this as I'd ever be. I wondered if I'd even have the guts to do this if my right hand wasn't the way it was, influencing me, eating away at my fear.

I made the jump without difficulty. Venge made it too. He was pretty tough for a little guy. And it's not like I'm a big guy. But at least I'm guy-sized.

Ever was already checking out the next door, and Venge was right there with him. I was a little surprised at his eagerness, but I shouldn't have been. He wanted out of here even more than the rest of us did. Who knew what he'd gone through?

I turned and looked over my shoulder, feeling my right hand on pins and needles. I couldn't see the wire, but I could feel it. There was another death that I'd avoided, one of dozens. For the first time in a long time, seven days, I no longer wondered why.

There's calm in having all the answers. Learning why Velvet had walked away from her life, turning to the Ukraine – that had killed some of the restlessness in me, just as other recent revelations had. But calm isn't the same as peace.

The death of uncertainty is the birth of something else altogether. I stared at where I knew the wire was for another moment, then turned and started down the corridor to join Ever and Venge. None of this changed anything. I knew what was happening. I just wished I didn't.


	8. Chapter 8

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 8

I was getting restless. I was grinding my teeth, opening and closing my hand. Ever could tell. He'd sensed it at first, but now he knew for certain, and I was finally sensing the wariness in him that should've been there from the start.

We crossed a room covered in different tiles, on a timer. There was a mounted light that had to be used to light the way. For two disoriented, possibly injured men, it would have been a tricky puzzle. For us, with our flashlights, it was nothing. We clearly weren't getting the full experience. The people who designed this place had not planned for Ever. He was outplaying them, and I was outperforming them. This was an embarrassment, and I was tired of it.

Stan was trying not to let on, but I could hear it in his voice. This tournament was still on, but it would damage him. Not as much as I would damage him when I got out of here, but harm had been done. His façade wouldn't hold. We listened as he went on and on, putting on a bright and cheery show for his viewers.

Everything he said indicated that Velvet and Grigor were still alive. That was, until he started shouting something – and an explosion shook the building. It must have done something to the speakers in the corridor, because all we got was static.

"Don't jump to conclusions," Ever said to me, and it took everything I had not to kill him right there. Venge was staring at me with wide eyes. I guess I must have looked pretty scary.

We knew this was the final room because Stan told us so when we finally reached a speaker that worked. I could tell from his voice that he didn't expect us to survive. He didn't say anything about Velvet. He was using his multiple audio channels to his advantage. He wanted me rattled and off-balance. He wanted me worried and unstable. And he got it.

"Through this door, ladies and gentlemen," he was saying.

I stepped forward and kicked it off its hinges.

It was just another room. The lights were flickering like you'd see at a rave, making it difficult to see. There was loud music drowning out Stan's voice. I recognized it.

There was chain link fencing forming two chambers, and two routes through the room. Four chain-link gates, all latched, but not locked. We had to choose one to get across. The door on the other side looked ordinary enough. There was some kind of device on the latches of the far gates, but in the poor light I couldn't make out any details.

A bucket of something sat on the floor. I knelt and touched it with one finger. Paint. Why was there paint?

I got back up and looked at Ever. He was standing there with Venge just behind him. His head was tilted just a little, and I was familiar with the look in his eyes. He was thinking, analyzing, conquering this room and the people who had made it. In a different state of mind, I'd have had more respect. Just then I didn't have time for him. I couldn't hear myself think.

I looked at the left door, then at the right. I didn't care. If Velvet was in trouble, it was going to take more than these games to keep me from her. I threw the latch and flung open the door.

A lock clamped down on the far gate, but there was a small timer attached. Numbers were counting down, but there was no explosive. It was the lock. The lock would disengage in a minute. I stepped into the compartment and looked back. Ever was standing with one hand outstretched, eyes wide.

I'd actually surprised him. Fancy that.

It also meant I'd messed up. The nature of the room was clear to me, now that I'd already walked into it. The music meant we couldn't hear. The flickering light didn't let us see the distortion, or at least, it made us look carefully. The paint should have been a giveaway. It was meant to let us determine which compartment was safe to pass through. Simple. Ever had figured it out, but too late.

I turned back around. The drinker stood over me, a full foot taller than I was, even hunched over. In the madly flickering light, the creature's red eyes were a constant. Its frame was gaunt, but it outweighed me easily. I knew how much power there was in those ropy-looking arms and those spidery fingers. I knew all about the paralytic venom in the spines that lined the tendrils hanging from its mouth. I knew how fast these things were, and I knew I was the only one in the room with a loaded weapon.

The timer continued to count down.

"You look thirsty." I cocked my head. "What? You don't want me – you want the people who put you here. Stick around after we're gone and you'll get your chance. No." I looked over my shoulder at Venge and Ever. "You can't have them. Don't give me that. You don't need it, you just want it. Fine. Have it your way." I left the cage and closed the gate. When I looked through, the drinker had gone transparent again, and I couldn't spot it in the flickering light. I opened the other cage, and the timer started ticking down again.

It wouldn't have attacked me, but trying to walk Venge and Ever past it… I wasn't so sure about that. They were both staring at me, of course, but I wasn't in the mood to talk, especially if I'd have to shout over the deafening music. I just wanted to get to Velvet. I'd have torn the gate off its hinges if I hadn't worried that it might be booby trapped.

The gate unlocked, and I opened it.

"Go," I said. Venge and Ever hurried through, and I went back and opened the drinker's gate, then followed, closing the safe gate behind me and pushing past Ever, who was at the door. I tried the handle. Locked.

I crushed it, then pulled it out of the door and threw it aside, pushing through. It was a stairwell. I started down, emerging into another narrow corridor. Doorways lining it had been bricked up, but there was a door at the end. Now the music sounded distant. My eyes adjusted to the light.

I was out. There were no more traps here. This door was locked too, and it was more solid than the other one. But the drywall wasn't. I punched through, splintering the wooden frame and reaching through to throw the latch. I opened it to find myself back in the garage.

There was the van, and the safe room, and the equipment, and the bodies. I'd just never looked at them from this angle. Not far away, I spotted another armored door. That was the one for the other route, no doubt.

I started toward it.

"Whoa – not so fast there, sport!" Stan's voice came to us loudly over the speakers. "Don't you want to collect your winnings?"

I stopped and looked up at the camera, then at the door to the safe room. I wasn't kidding myself. There was no way for me to break in there. I'd have liked to leave Stan to the drinker, but it wasn't an option. That didn't mean there was nothing I could do.

Ever was right behind me, no doubt saying something very logical – but I pushed him out of the way and went to the van. The keys weren't there. I flicked out a knife and jammed it into the ignition, then put it in reverse and drove it straight into the door, blocking it shut.

"Hey!" Stan burst out. I climbed down from the van, took out Lunch Box, and blew apart the speaker. The echoes died down, and the garage was refreshingly quiet. Now I could go without interruption – no, not without interruption. Ever was trying to hold me back, again, no doubt with very good reasons – but it didn't matter. The door burst open, and Velvet and Grigor emerged. Like us, both had obviously had a brush with explosives. They were covered in dust. There was a strip of cloth, stained dark, wrapped around Grigor's arm. Velvet had tied her hair back, and she was down to her undershirt, her vest and the top of her fatigues nowhere to be seen. Even so, she was covered in sweat. There was a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth, and makeshift bandages around both her hands. Their weapons were gone, but they were both walking under their own power. Barely.


	9. Chapter 9

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 9

Velvet slapped my hands away and stalked off. I opened my mouth, but Grigor was there, clutching his bandaged arm.

"We couldn't save him," he said, looking very old and grey. So that was how it was. I thought I'd seen tears in Velvet's eyes, and I had. We'd gotten Venge out, but they'd failed whoever they'd found. Velvet was sitting on the ground a little ways off, her knees drawn up to her chest. I didn't know what to say or do. Grigor was clearly shaken, and while Venge seemed like a nice guy, I wasn't sold on his reliability. I'd been ready to kill Ever a couple of minutes ago, but now I was glad he was there to take charge, because someone had to, even if it was a Duty man.

As I had, Ever decided to give Velvet some space for a minute – but he wasn't wasting any time, and damn him, he was right. Whatever battle strength we had as a group had been severely diminished. We'd lost blood and equipment, and we had to get out of there. This territory probably wasn't too dangerous with regards to mutants, but if Stan had called for help, there could be mercs on the way. We weren't ready for them.

Ever was searching the bodies in the garage. They didn't have much in the way of weapons or ammunition, but it looked like we had enough loaded handguns to go around. A protracted firefight was out of the question, but it was better than having to defend ourselves with flares and combat knives. I'd been using Lunch Box pretty liberally, and I was low too.

I took my eyes off Velvet long enough to raid her pack for her spare fatigues, which I gave to Venge on her behalf. They were loose on him, but it was better than having him run around half-naked. I firmly believe that Asians have as much right to be stalkers as anyone, but stalkers without pants? That's pushing it. At another time I'd have been interested to go through Velvet's personal things, but today was all business. Besides, I'd been inside her mind. She didn't have many secrets left.

I wanted to lighten the mood, but I didn't know how. I should have been somber myself, but Velvet was safe. That was good news, and nothing was going to kill it for me. Velvet didn't need to beat herself up for whatever had happened, she needed to pat herself on the back for trying – because not just anybody would have.

Grigor and Ever were talking. I figured I'd better hear what they were saying, so I headed over.

"What's the plan? How do we get back?" I asked them. "You must have had a way. Don't tell me they were going to pick you up."

Ever shook his head. "No, my ride was strictly one-way. And you're right, I did have a plan to cross. I have the coordinates of the tunnel."

Grigor folded his arms. "I thought it was destroyed."

Ever shrugged. "It's supposed to still be passable. And we can't dally here."

"You see me dallying?" I glanced back at Velvet. "Yeah," I sighed, then took a deep breath. "It had better be you."

"I suppose." Grigor didn't look enthused, but he went to kneel beside her. Venge had been helping himself to our food and water. That was all right; we weren't so low we couldn't share. But Venge would have to eat while he walked.

"I don't suppose satellite coverage is back yet?" I asked Ever tiredly. He gave a dry laugh. That was a no. "Then you don't even know if your coordinates are right."

"The job was worth the risk. I've wanted to shut this down for a long time."

I didn't blame him there.

I saw Velvet seem to snap out of it – and I almost wish she hadn't. Maybe it would've been better to just let her work out what she was feeling, but now she'd just snuffed it, and added another layer to her armor. This probably meant that a few more light Velvets had gone down in battle, and the dark Velvet army had gained that much more ground.

It was night now, and there's nothing like traveling through a ghost city in the dark. Man, was I looking forward to getting back to Kevorich. How long had we been gone? Not long, really. Just a few days – but it felt like a lifetime.

I decided I needed to talk to Velvet. She was making a good show of being all business, but it was just that – a show. So I fell in beside her, careful not to walk too close, even though I wanted to.

"What's the plan after we cross?" That would take her mind off things for a second or two, and I'd see if I could stretch it out – buy the light Velvets a chance to regroup. The light Velvets were just a metaphor, of course, but if they had existed as literal entities, I'm sure they'd have appreciated it.

Velvet took a breath. She was wearing my outer armor, since Venge had on her spares, and she'd lost her fatigue jacket somewhere in the building. "We strike out for Yantar," she said finally. "With whoever's ready to travel." She meant the Biker and Sagaris, of course. I was guessing they'd be feeling up to it. I was looking forward to seeing Sagaris again. He was the closest thing I had to a friend in this godforsaken place. There was Velvet, but I didn't even want to think that, because then I might end up in the friend zone, and you never get out of the friend zone.

Then it happened again, just like it had when I asked Ever what was wrong with him. I had a fleeting vision of a cute, but mousy-looking girl telling the Biker that he'd never get out of the friend zone. And again, instead of his armor, he was dressed like a biker – a proper American biker. I shook my head.

"You all right?" Velvet asked.

"I'm fine."

"We'll lay the foundation along the way. Now that we have Grigor, there's nothing holding us back."

"From business?"

"From business."

"That'll be good." I was serious. I'd feel a lot better when Freedom's ranks were a little more robust. Velvet needed more bodies around. The only reason she was still alive was that Freedom had taken her in and protected her, because she sure as hell hadn't come to the Ukraine ready to protect herself. As tough as she thought she was, she wouldn't last long alone, or even with a small group. Even with me. Especially not after this son of a bitch Ever reported to Duty that she was alive. Once the rumors were confirmed, they'd start to hunt for her again in earnest.

Yes, it was time to make some friends. Velvet had a good plan. An original plan. Nothing like this had ever been tried in the Zone before, and I thought that was a good sign. After all, the Zone was changing – so stalkers had to change with it, right? A new plan was exactly what a new faction would need to survive in the new Ukraine.

Despite all that, we still didn't know if it was going to work. We'd find out soon.

We spotted some lights on a side street – other stalkers – but elected not to make contact.

I didn't have a clue what this tunnel was. I knew the bridges spanning the channel had all been destroyed, and I assumed that if you wanted to get across these days, you flew – or got teleported by an anomaly, like Velvet and I had been. But apparently there was a tunnel – something about getting supplies from the outside to some underground labs or something. Apparently the location was known only to the cadre of stalkers who made a business of smuggling people and contraband in and out of the Zone. If I'd been too poor to afford being choppered in, maybe I'd have used a route like this. Actually, that probably would've been better, because the damn chopper pilots had set me up. And I still hadn't settled with them. But I had other things to think about.

I started to get a bad feeling when we had to break into a building, then into that building's basement. You remember when I was lost in the caves beneath the channel? Well, that didn't leave me full of positive associations with being underground in the dark. I wouldn't say I was scared, but I will say that my morale was not soaring.

These buildings were just as old and decayed as those on the other side of the Channel; we were walking in dust an inch deep. Peeling paint everywhere, the oddest things left lying around. Bones, sometimes. All of it made creepier by the fact that we only saw it in the beams of our flashlights. It was chilly down there, but it wasn't like I was going to ask Velvet to give me my armor back.

We weren't as close to the actual Channel as I'd hoped, either. The tunnel opened quite a ways back, apparently to camouflage the entrance, which must have been at the time of its construction, a great secret. That meant we had a long road ahead of us. Joy.

"Well," Ever said, in reply to Velvet's question. "I purchased the coordinates from a man who claimed to an associate of one of the men who ran this route. But there was one thing."

"Yes?"

"He hadn't heard from that man in some time."

"How much time?"

"A number of years."

I couldn't help myself; I cut in. "So nobody's been down here since then?"

"I wouldn't know about that – but it's possible."

"How do we know it's not caved in or something?"

"We don't. Think of it as an adventure," Ever said. "When he sold me the coordinates – he didn't ask for much."

"Because going underground always ends so well for me," Velvet sighed.


	10. Chapter 10

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 10

"I understand there was a time when this route was well-known," Ever said, picking his way through the debris that littered the floor. We were in a big room, far under the building we'd broken into, and it was finally starting to look like we were on the right track. There were big metal doors at the far end, wedged and rusted open, and this big space must have been for staging freight to go through the tunnel.

"Then how'd it get like this?" I was trying to keep a conversation going because it was genuinely creepy in here. It was clear from the undisturbed dust and silt that it had been a while since anyone had come through this way. Not necessarily years, but still a while.

"How does anywhere in the Zone get forgotten? It's not like there's anywhere with nothing worth remembering. But it does happen. Fewer and fewer people come back until the only people who know of a place are the ones who know better than to go there."

"And it makes sense," Velvet added. "That this would lose significance now that the Cordon's been extended. Nobody comes this way anymore, there's no point. That those people were doing their tournament in this area proves it."

"So this is it?"

"Presumably." We all pointed our lights down the tunnel. They didn't show us much. It was bigger than expected. Not huge, but maybe around the size of a subway tunnel. There were rusted tracks in the ground for some kind of substantial cart, but we hadn't seen anything like that.

"Just a straight shot across?" Venge sounded hopeful.

"Straight would be the most practical," Ever mused. "But one never knows in this part of the world. It's over a kilometer in the best case. While we're in there, try not to think about how there's a billion tons of water between you and the open."

"Yeah, troll us down here too," I said. "That'll help."

"I live to serve."

I was curious to talk to Venge – it's not every day you see another Asian in the Zone, and I wanted to know what his story was. But this wasn't the time. All we were doing was walking, but my hand was telling me to stay sharp. And that was odd, in light of what we were about to find. We heard the water before we saw it.

It wasn't the ceiling that had collapsed, but the floor. Water poured from cracks in the ceiling, but not in an urgent way. There was a lot, but it wasn't like the cement was breaking apart in front of us.

All the same, it was a bad sign. The tunnel could've been in this state for a while, but it couldn't hold up forever. The fact that it hadn't flooded was more disturbing; all that water had to go somewhere.

"This is unexpected," Ever said mildly.

"It's impassible." Velvet had her light pointed at the other side. The gap was much too wide to jump, and there was really only darkness below. I didn't see any way to climb up the other side. This was what my hand had been warning me about? What amounted to a hole in the ground? I told my hand to shut up and stop bothering me. It did. I flexed it a few times. It was refreshing not to have it buzzing danger warnings at me.

The others were talking, and I tuned back in. Velvet was crouched at the edge, looking down. They were all looking down, and I watched their lights play over the rocks leading into the dark.

Well, it wasn't like I didn't already know there was a system of caves under the Channel – but we were already far down, and this was even farther. This was as deep as I'd ever been while I'd been lost and wandering in the dark, and that meant that these caves were unfamiliar to me. Well – of course they were. Even the ones I'd been through were unfamiliar. But you know what I'm saying – these were not the same caves that I'd encountered. This was something else. Who knew the Ukraine was so porous?

Velvet cleared her throat and stood up, giving us all a smile that could've melted even the Biker's heart, and unbeknownst to me at the time, would. Sooner than I thought, too.

Still smiling, she stated this flatly: "We're going back."

"Aren't you curious?" Ever was trolling again. He didn't want to go down there any more than I did.

"Nothing you or anyone could say would convince me otherwise," she said cheerily, and this forced cheer was probably an indication that she meant business.

"What did she say?" Venge asked.

"You don't speak Russian?"

He shook his head without looking up, then froze. "I think there's a kid down there," he said, sounding puzzled. It took me a moment to process that, and everyone else heard it too. I saw from the look on Velvet's face that in that instant, she had been forced to confront the possibility that she was about to eat her words. Then her smiled widened, and she laughed.

"No, really." Venge got to his feet, looking puzzled. "I think there really is a kid down there."  
>"I will push you off this edge," Velvet said in English. "And laugh."<p>

"I'm being serious," he said, and I couldn't believe it, but it was true. He wasn't lying. I didn't know if he'd seen what he thought he'd seen, but he believed it. I could tell.

"Where?" Ever stepped back to the edge and angled his light down. "I don't see anything at all down there."

"It was down there," Venge said stubbornly.

"It?" I repeated.

He shrugged. "Well, what did he look like?" Grigor pressed. He was taking this well, compared to the rest of us.

"Not sure it was a he," the little Asian said, chewing his lip. "I didn't get a good look, all right?"

We were all exchanging glances over the short Asian's head, thinking a lot of things. We'd only just met this guy; was he crazy? It wasn't unheard of in a place like this. And yet I had a feeling I knew where this was going. And I couldn't blame it on Velvet, either.

Besides, even though we'd just met him, we all knew Venge was weird, and there probably would've been some debate about his sanity, but I don't think anybody genuinely suspected him of being the seeing things kind of crazy.

More than anything, Velvet looked annoyed. And I didn't blame her. I'd been all set to go back topside; I didn't like it down there any more than she did.

And yet, we were all still looking dubiously at Venge, who was picking up on it. A child? In the Zone?

Women were one thing. There were a couple out there running around in disguise, and there was Velvet, who was a special case – she was only allowed to exist as a female because Freedom had found her before she got into trouble, and some kindhearted officer had decided to protect her – and there were the girls at Kevorich, also protected. And that boiled down to something like twenty females in the entire Zone, and they're all accounted for by someone, because they can only survive by being attached to a group. It's sad, but it's a fact of life.

So the thought of a kid in the Zone, especially in a place like this, was understandably hard to swallow. If you leave the Zone and watch the movies that Hollywood likes to make about it, you'll always see the 100 pound, yet still tough and independent female stalker (and master martial artist/gymnast) all the time – but even if such people existed, which they don't, they'd have the good sense to get out if they got pregnant. This isn't where you deliver, much less raise a child.

No matter how I looked at it, that was what I got.

So this kid probably didn't exist. And yet, we'd probably feel awful if we left without at least taking a look. I decided to cut the red tape.

I took off my pack and handed it to Venge. "I'm going to climb down real fast," I said. "Five minutes and we're gone."

Velvet nodded, looking approving. Venge looked a little guilty. I could see he was starting to doubt himself. That was probably a good sign.

It wasn't that bad of a climb, but it was a long way down, and I had to make sure not to go down anything I wasn't confident I could go back up. Water splashed onto me from one of the breaks overhead, and it was freezing.

It was what I'd expected – there were caves here, under the tunnel. I hadn't expected them to be so large. I didn't know how big they were, but I knew my light was only showing a fraction. I'm talking big, cathedral-style caves, with pointy things on the floor and the ceiling. Stalactites from the ceiling? Right? Because stalagmites might hang from the ceiling, but they don't? So they're on the floor, and the stalactites are on the ceiling. I think. Whatever. Don't ask me to ever use those words again.

I had to do some climbing to get over to the area Venge had indicated, but I managed it. Above, I could see everyone's lights. The caverns had remarkable acoustics, and the noise of the falling water echoed and dominated the space. I'd have to really shout if they were going to hear anything up there.

I got ready to call out anyway, because how else were we going to know if there was someone down here? Not that they could've missed our lights and our voices – but then I saw the tiny wet footprints on the stone.


	11. Chapter 11

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 11

I wasn't sure what to think, but there was no question about what I was seeing. This was no illusion; I took off my glove and felt the cool water. I rose and turned a full circle, panning my light around. Then I shone it down on the ground. The footprints led off into the dark. I knew we weren't going to get a real trail out of this – it looked like the feet had come from the water, and gone off that way.

Well, I didn't like it, but there was no helping it. I motioned for everyone to come on down. Five minutes and we're gone? Not this time. We were in for the long haul.

In truth, this was more mysterious than frightening. The kid, if he or she had functioning eyes, couldn't have failed to notice us. They hadn't chosen to initiate contact, and maybe they'd even made an effort not to be seen. I could picture it; our lights coming down from above – it would have attracted attention, and seeing a group of stalkers might scare a small child off. But the story still didn't really work.

Where had this kid had come from in the first place? The only civilians still inside the cordon were a few stubborn souls out to the west. Pripyat was clear, and so was the south. I wasn't sure about the north. That had been a satellite black zone all along; nobody knew what was going on up there except the people up there, if there were any.

There wasn't supposed to be much going on this side of the channel – nothing, really – but it was still well within the cordon. Nobody was going to start a family here just because it wasn't quite in the thick of things.

The others were making their way down, Ever moving the fastest. Grigor wasn't a young man, and he was injured, so he didn't climb very quickly. Venge didn't seem to have much experience, and Velvet was moving very gingerly. We weren't in any condition to do this, but you can't just have children running around alone in the Zone – much less under it. There hadn't been any discussion; this was an understanding.

Venge was panting from the climb. "Thunderdome," he said.

"What?"

"Everything's going great – then kids show up."

"Yeah." I took out Lunch Box to check it, then put it away – what was I thinking? I was down here to help, not to destroy. At least that was the idea. I stared at my hand.

"You all right?"

"I'm fine," I lied, then turned to Velvet. "Are you all right?" She opened her mouth, but I gave her a hard look.

"I can travel," she said, giving in.

That was probably true. And I'd rather have her with me and uncomfortable than waiting somewhere by herself. If there was a kid down here, we couldn't ignore logic – there was probably someone else. Leaving a woman alone where there might be unknown hostiles – not an option. And leaving her with Grigor wouldn't sit well with me either. As much as I hated to admit it, Ever and I made a passable team – but it was better to stick together regardless.

"Stick together team," Venge said. I resisted the urge to hit him.

The only upshot to this was that there were five of us. That was a good-sized group. You rarely see that many stalkers together because the payout from most jobs doesn't split well five ways, so five is a pretty solid force. Now, if only we'd been properly armed and not exhausted.

"This way," I called over the echoing water. Ever paused beside me, his eyes ahead.

"Something is profoundly wrong here," he said in English.

"I know."

"Dig the nostalgia," Venge said to the German.

"Yes, I've often remembered our first meeting."

"Really?"

"No."

Actually, I didn't mind these caves so much. There was something quite impressive about the vast chambers whose size we couldn't even begin to determine. It might have seemed sinister if not for the noise of all the water. If I hadn't known better, I might've actually liked it. It was like we were walking in outer space – the black was absolute except for our lights, and without knowing just how high up the ceiling was, my imagination was going all sorts of places.

Of course we lost the footprints. Your feet don't stay wet forever when you're walking on a dry surface.

"Keep on?"

Velvet nodded tiredly, and I threw back another glow stick. Presumably we'd be coming back this way, and navigation was all but impossible in the sea of black. Only clear markers could give us a chance of finding our way back to the collapsed tunnel.

Of course knowing our way back could only do us so much good. Without a trail to follow, it was unclear where to go next. We couldn't call out to the kid – our voices wouldn't carry far over the noise from the water, and this wasn't a corridor. We could go in pretty much any direction – but we got lucky. There was a good-sized stream crossing our path, and the footprints resumed on the other side, indicating we were on the right track.

"This child can't be more than four or five years old," Ever said, kneeling by the tracks. "At the most."

"Then they're not alone." I just didn't see how they could be. Did that mean we weren't necessary?

"Hey, hey, hey," Venge said, and I already didn't like where this was going. "What if it's like that, uh – you know, that thing."

"What?"

"That thing. The little cave village with the kids. Little – little…"

I actually knew what he was talking about. "Little Flashlight?"

"No, that's not it." He rubbed at his chin.

"Boys," Velvet said.

"Anyway, uh – I don't think that's what's going on here," I said.

"You're probably right."

"Grigor?" I asked him because he'd been around longer than anyone, but he looked as lost as the rest of us.

The truth is, nobody has a clue what's going on underground, and that's all there is to it. That's why the underground intrigues us, and that's why it terrifies us. Bottom line. The topside changes, but there are still rules. Down here, all bets are off.

We didn't get far before we hit another body of water, this one much larger. Down here all the water was crystal clear, and our lights could pierce through straight to the bottom – at least as far out as they'd go. It looked to me like there was a steep dropoff, so there was really no telling how deep it was. Not really a comforting thought.

We thought we'd have to find a way around, but there was an amazing rock formation that made a sort of narrow bridge.

"That's just tempting fate," Ever said. "Let's find another way." Everyone agreed, and I felt like we'd just broken a cardinal rule. Like someone in a slasher film thinking of going off by themselves – then suddenly thinking better of it. So we'd broken a rule in a good way.

Only the lake just kept going and going. And there was no sign of the footprints. We were all thinking it – the kid must have crossed. So we went back, but nobody seemed to be in a hurry to step out onto the stone walkway.

It's not as bad as it sounds. It was probably a meter across, and not especially slippery. And it wasn't like it was acid down there, just icy water. Ever volunteered to go first, and I didn't see any reason to get competitive on this one.

It goes without saying that we were careful about crossing. It felt like it took a long time, and I guess it did. The lake was big. I concentrated on following Ever and staying relaxed – tense people do twitchy things, like getting startled and falling off narrow walkways.

"There's something in the water," Ever reported, and I paused long enough to point my light down and take a look. It was about ten feet down to the surface. I didn't see anything. The water looked dark, which meant it was seriously deep.

"There would be," Velvet sighed.

"What'd she say?" Venge asked.

"She said it's time for you to learn a little Russian."

"I know a little."

"Well learn some more."

"How can I if you don't tell me what she said?"

"Boys!"

She said that in English.

Ever stopped in his tracks, and I almost bumped into him. A couple of moments went by before I managed to look over his shoulder and see where his light was pointed. Now I understood why he'd stopped.

We'd reached the end of the bridge. No one had fallen in, but now I wasn't thinking about that. The hooded figure standing at the edge of the water was dark despite being illuminated by Ever's flashlight. It wasn't a kid.


	12. Chapter 12

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 12

I gave Ever a gentle prod, and he took the hint. Warily, he stepped off the bridge and onto the stone floor, making room for the rest of us to do the same. If something was going to happen, better that it not happen while we were over the water. Velvet slipped past me.

When Ever had called out those tournament traps intended to misdirect, it had made an impression on me. The man in the hood had our full attention. My hand wasn't giving me anything from him, but it wasn't comfortable with the water. I wasn't sure what to think of that, but I knew better than to question it. I put my light on the clear water and tried to keep an open mind.

The man in the hood said something in Russian that I didn't catch. It was hard to hear with all the echo, and my Russian's barely adequate on my best day. I wasn't willing to take my eyes off the water. Sometimes it did look like there were shapes moving down there – but after the things I'd seen in the Valley, I knew how light and fog could play tricks. Why would water be any different? There was also the matter that I hadn't slept in… what? Two days? At least?

Velvet was asking if this man had seen a child. I didn't hear the answer. I noticed that Venge had his revolver in his hand, behind his back. I wasn't sure if he was being smart, or if he was about to do something stupid. I didn't give him the benefit of the doubt. My right hand closed over his wrist and held it there. He looked startled, but seemed to get the message.

"Apparently the child is one of theirs," Ever murmured to me.

"Theirs?" I kept my eyes on the water.

"It sounds like there's some manner of colony down here. He's offering to lead us out."

"Say no," I hissed.

"And do what? Go back? It'll be nightfall by now, and we still don't have a way across."

"You can't seriously think this is a good idea."

"We ran out of good ideas a while back," Ever pointed out, nodding to Velvet, who gave an almost imperceptible twitch to acknowledge him. That irked me; Velvet and Ever had known each other for less than a day. And I'd barely known her a week, so I didn't say anything

This was all putting me on edge.

"We'll take you up on your generous offer," Velvet said, loudly enough that we could all hear.

"That was a yes, wasn't it?" Venge said, looking grim.

"Yeah."

"I don't like this."

"We're in too deep – if this guy or his friends mean us harm, we'll never make it back to the tunnel anyway. Better to feel them out," I said. It was the truth; rather than the best play, this was simply the least awful. You could count on Ever for decisions like that. You could count on Ever for a lot of things. Maybe that was why I was starting to hate him. He couldn't go back to Duty soon enough. It wasn't like I was just itching to point the Lunch Box at him – but I'd subconsciously started to look for an excuse.

The man under the hood sounded normal enough. I didn't think he was a native Russian speaker, but it should be obvious by now that I'm not an expert on nationalities. I think he must've been some kind of European. Older than Ever, not that Ever was all that old. He could only be a year or two older than I was – though he seemed much older. There was another reason not to like him. Guys like that are always full of themselves. My hand flexed. I'd seen egos, but never one big enough to stop a bullet.

The hooded man had no light. He was leading us by – I don't know even know how he was doing it. But he was. Nobody was speaking now. Everyone was on their guard. Our guide couldn't have failed to notice it.

A drop of icy water fell on me, and I stopped to look up into the dark. I was running down scenario after scenario, and I could tell Ever was doing the same thing. And we were both probably hitting the same wall: insufficient data. The moment this hooded man appeared, we went from a bizarre situation to an even worse one in the blink of an eye. None of us had a clue what was going on. We'd been winging it before, but now there wasn't even a word for what we were doing.

I glanced down at the water and froze. The Morton Stalker stared up at me. No, it was just my reflection. I shook my head and started to walk again. Ahead we could hear more falling water, splashing over rocks and pouring into pools. The echoes conveyed a sense of great height, and I realized we were going downhill. It was getting seriously cold, and I missed my armor, but Velvet needed it more than I did. What I needed was to be thinking about how I was going to get us out of this mess – because I didn't need my hand to tell me we were in one.

I knew one way. Before I could act, Ever was at my side, his arm thrown around my shoulders in a comradely fashion. I took my hand away from my gun.

"Don't," he said flatly, keeping his eyes on the back of our guide. "You can't force their hand when you don't know who they are."

"We're waiting for something that isn't coming," I whispered. "We have to do something."

Ever looked at me for a moment, then sighed. "Are you a churchgoer?"

"What? No."

He cleared his throat. "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner's servants came to him and said, Sir – didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where did the weeds come from? An enemy did this, the owner replied. The servants asked him: do you want us to go pull them up? No, he answered. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: first collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn." Ever released me. "There are children down here," he added quietly, in case I hadn't picked up on the message. For the record, I had. I glared at him.

If spontaneous combustion was possible, I'd have done it. But he was right. I left Lunch Box in its holster, and our guide got to go on living. For now.

Someday rushing down was going to be the right move, but Ever was going to stay back and try to lame it out, and he was going to lose because of it. Mark my words.

There was a familiar glow ahead. It was the same type of bioluminescent fungus I'd encountered the last time I was down here – but not the same stuff. The hue was different. The kind I'd seen before had been more blue than green, a beautiful and calming hue. This was deep green.

There was the mouth of a natural tunnel ahead. Still roomy, not cramped – but it looked like we were leaving the big caverns. Or maybe we'd travel a few yards through this and emerge in another one. There was no way to tell. All bets were off down here.

More water pooled around our feet. We'd actually done some light wading to get here. The lower we went, the wetter it became. If the rocks above cracked or broke, the water from those lakes up there could conceivably flood these passages. That was a cheery thought.

Now we were in the tunnel. My light showed thousands and thousands of pores in some of the stone formations, natural, like some kind of coral. There were also carvings, but I didn't get a good look at them – our guide had quickened his pace.

Tunnels branched off, but he was confident. He knew exactly where he was going. Now the echoes of falling water were distant, and we were making most of the sound.

I heard tiny footfalls down one corridor. I wondered if it would be a good play to ask this guy who he was, and what he and his people were doing down here. But Ever hadn't done so, and neither had Velvet or Grigor. That probably meant there was a good reason for it. My guess: they were still trying to feel him out, letting the status quo ride without tipping their hands. And that was fine – I just wondered what he'd say if asked. Something told me it wouldn't be the truth.

My hand was telling me I was in danger whether I wanted it to or not, but that was all it had to say, and that was odd – and yet not odd. I mean, if there was danger, I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to guess it had something to do with this hooded man and whoever else was down here with him. Yet that wasn't the vibe I was getting. There was an awful inconsistency at work, and I was starting to feel sick.

I could see now what had at first looked like a black robe was in fact an oversized hooded coat, not unlike the ones the bandits seem to love so much. That was something; I think maybe it implied that this man was a stalker. He wasn't a bandit. Bandits are cowards. You'd never find one down here. And you certainly wouldn't find them raising kids.

Then we weren't in the tunnel anymore. We were in a chamber from which at least half a dozen corridors branched off. There were openings high in the walls, like windows. In the feeble light from the fungus, I could see movement. There were dark figures at those windows, and in the halls all around us. It wasn't like we'd made it hard for them; we were surrounded.

[Author note – let me know how I'm doing! Stop by the blog, leave a comment, ask a question, write a review – whatever works for you. I gotta have that feedback to know when I'm doing it right and when I'm doing it wrong. Thanks for reading.]

–Wish


	13. Chapter 13

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 13

There were all kinds ways to describe our situation. Some of them began with the word 'royally.'

Though nothing had happened, we'd instinctively grouped together, back to back, all of us facing out. Maybe it was just me, but the light from the fungus seemed to be fading a little, like someone had given a dimmer switch a little twist. The man under the hood turned back.

"Won't you stay with us?" he asked in his stilted Russian. His voice wasn't quite as normal as I'd fist thought. There was something odd about it, something I couldn't put my finger on. He sounded a bit like a long-time smoker, a bit like something else. "For the night? I can lead you out in the morning."

Enough. I cut in. "No," I said sharply, and it was probably clear that my Russian was bad, but I didn't care. "No, we have friends who could be in danger. We have to cross now."

Like I said, I couldn't see a face – but I didn't think he was pleased. No one said anything. The black shape regarded me for several moments, then there was a twitch that I think indicated an incline of the head, like a small nod.

"Very well. But I am needed here tonight, and I cannot guide you."

My hand lit up like a cutting torch. I formed a tight fist and held it, standing my ground. The man in the hood moved to one of the doorways. Ever and Velvet had no choice but to back my play. Velvet probably agreed with it. Maybe Ever thought we should play it out, but I didn't care – he was wrong. We had to go, and we had to go now. There was no other way we were getting out of this alive. I didn't have to know the nature of the threat to see that much, and my hand didn't think it was a sure thing in any case.

The man halted beside one of the passages. "This way," he said. "You need only follow the carvings. Don't stray."

Velvet and I exchanged a glance. Ever looked bemused, but wary.

"Thank you for your kindness," he said, extending a hand. To my surprise, the hooded man took it. His hand was gloved. No surprise there – it was cold down here. I was wearing gloves. I had been even before my hand had started to change. Grigor and Ever were as well. Lots of people wear gloves. So why did this bother me?

That was it; there were no more words. Ever started down the passage, and the rest of us followed. None of us liked being in that chamber, with those people on all sides. How did we know if they were even people? There could've been anything in those coats. Okay – now I was being silly. But still, this was bizarre. And we hadn't even scratched the surface yet.

We were walking fast. No one spoke until we'd traveled quite a distance. Ever's light showed us some of the carvings. "These are what he meant, I suppose."

"You trust it?"

"Honestly?" he said in English, turning back to Velvet. "This is the strangest thing I've ever encountered, and I've been to the Center."

"I feel the same way," Grigor said.

"What are these pictures of?" Venge asked, squinting.

"Looks like fish. And people."

"What are they doing?" Venge asked.

I had a pretty good idea what they were doing, but I didn't want to voice it. There was a lady present. And she was looking at the pictures too. She cleared her throat. "Keep moving," she said in English, probably for Venge's benefit. Looking puzzled, he straightened and followed us.

I couldn't help but look at the carvings, but there was no time to stop and examine them. It was unspoken; obviously no one wanted to linger. And that would've been all well and good, but I wasn't convinced we hadn't been pointed at a dead end. Obviously following instructions was the thing to do – we weren't armed to just shoot our way through a whole colony of underground-dwelling stalkers – but I had to wonder just how good Ever's plan for this contingency could be. I think he likes to just try things, and if they don't work, he wings it – and then if that works he says it was his plan all along. That's what I think. Okay, no I don't – but that's what I'll tell anyone who asks me.

There was a subtle pressure in the air. I could almost feel the water overhead. There might've been quite a lot of rock between us and the channel now, but that didn't change anything. Again the ground was sloping downward. I did some silent estimating, and shuddered. If we didn't see some uphill soon, I was going to try a motion to get us turned around. There was a limit to how deep I would go.

It was safe to talk now, but no one seemed keen to say anything. We were all so intensely cognizant of how truly awful our predicament was. We'd almost gotten off the path once already – the carvings weren't always easy to follow. Even if this was the right road, there was no guarantee we wouldn't make a wrong turn. And there were plenty of them to make.

Venge was lagging behind. I paused and looked back. "Come on," I said. He was standing at one of the passages, looking perplexed.

"I think I just saw a naked woman," he said.

"You what?"

I dragged him after the others. We didn't have time for this. "I'm serious," he said, and I was trying really hard not to think about how he'd been right about the child. I pushed him ahead of me. I didn't know what he'd really seen, but I'd already known we weren't alone down here. We didn't need Venge in the back; it was too easy to picture him being grabbed, and none of us noticing. I'd stay in the back; nobody was going to try to grab me, and if they did, it wouldn't be quiet.

I stumbled, and realized there were holes in the floor. "Guys," I called out, and the others looked back. "Watch your step." Everyone pointed their lights straight down. The holes weren't large, and they weren't frequent – but if we weren't careful, somebody was going to twist an ankle. These rock formations were not normal. The walls of the cave were largely smooth, but the floor was different.

This slowed our pace somewhat, and I didn't even know how far we'd gone. Something caught my eye, and I knelt down to look, shielding my light. There was movement through one of the pores in the stone. Not making a sound, I knelt down to have a look.

There was, in fact, a naked woman down there. It couldn't be the same one Venge had seen, because we'd come quite a ways, and the corridor had twisted several times along the way.

The hole gave me a very limited field of view, and I couldn't see her face – but her body was clearly illuminated by the soft green glow down there. I didn't know if it was the strange light of the fungus, or her actual skin tone, but she looked extremely, unhealthily pale. Though apart from that she seemed quite healthy. Her skin glistened, but it couldn't have been sweat, because it was freezing down there, and the rock she was lying on must've been ice cold. Both her hands were working enthusiastically between her legs.

In the Zone there are things you don't see every day, and then there are things you don't see every day because you're in the Zone. This was probably one of those. And you know, I mean – I'll admit, this was odd. I know what you're thinking; things being odd in the Zone are like people being wrong on the internet. It's just one of those things. I take odd for granted. But even with all of that in mind, this was still odd.

Venge was abruptly at my side, and I clapped a hand over his mouth, and my other over his eyes. I wasn't sure he was old enough to be seeing this.

For a second time I dragged him back to the others, who had noticed our absence and stopped. They could sense something was wrong; we were talking in whispers now.

"What is it?"

I wasn't sure what to say. I released Venge, who gave me a look, but he didn't even make the cut to be at the bottom of my list of worries.

I was lost. Everything down here was so far out of my comfort zone – if you can even have a comfort zone in the Ukraine. I had no frame of reference for what was happening. And if I told them exactly what I'd seen, they'd look at me the same way they looked at Venge, and that was a fate worse than death.

When you're in the Zone, you're in over your head. Just in general. It goes without saying. But even by Zone standards, I felt like we were somehow more in over our heads than usual, and that probably wasn't good.

"We need to run," I said.


	14. Chapter 14

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 14

"Do we want to know?" Grigor asked, and I think it was a fair question.

"I wouldn't."

"Are you sure?" Velvet said tiredly.

"I think so."

It didn't thrill anybody, but it was what it was. We hadn't rested since… I didn't even remember. I didn't know what day it was. But now it was time to run. Jogging's one thing; jogging with packs and equipment is another. Maybe the fact that we had nothing but handguns between us was good. Of course if we'd been armed, maybe we wouldn't have needed to run.

Careful to keep our lights both ahead and on the ground in front of us, we set off. That we might be hurrying deeper into a trap was at the front of everyone's mind.

It didn't last. In moments we were out of the tunnel and in the open. Not the real open, of course – but the open. Another of these huge caverns. There was water in front of us, lots of it by the dark color – this was probably the deepest we'd seen yet. We could go left or right. There were no echoes of falling water here; it was eerily quiet.

"I'm left handed," Ever said, and it was the only sound.

We started to move again. "But where is the Goblin King?" Velvet wondered aloud.

"That's not in good taste," Ever replied. His Russian was awfully good, but letting it bother me down here would be counterproductive. He put up a hand, and everyone stopped. That irked me – that was Velvet's job, and occasionally mine. "Anyone else hear that?" He switched abruptly to English.

I held my breath. There was something. Something like croaking, maybe? But it was distant, and it was impossible to know what direction it was coming from.

The water sloshed out in the dark. Something had broken the surface and gone under again.

"Back off," I said, moving away from the water.

"The Watcher?" Velvet said.

"Wrong book," I said distractedly, feeling very nerdy that I knew what she was talking about. "And quit it. That wasn't in a cave."

"It was by a cave," Grigor said. Thanks a lot, old timer.

"We shouldn't be talking right now," Ever pointed out, and I had no choice but to agree. In the silence we all listened again. There was no sound but our breathing. Then a wet slap from somewhere far off, like someone dropping a heavy piece of meat on the rocks or something. Ever waved his light, and we started walking. We were stuck between the wall of the chamber and the water; there wasn't a lot of room. This wall was covered in the most detailed carvings yet, but I didn't even bother to look. What were the odds that they'd brighten my mood?

We were leaving the last of the glowing fungus behind and entering true dark. I was trying not to think about the woman I'd seen, or the eerie community whose invitation we'd refused.

I should've known that if someone was waiting to make their move, this would've been the time – when we were out of the dim illumination of the fungus, and relying solely on our own lights.

There was a splashing, then more of that strange croaking.

Yeah. I stopped. "We've got incoming," I stated flatly. Ever and Velvet had been thinking the same thing, but someone had to come out and say it.

"Lights out," Ever said. "Let's have a listen."

I turned off my light, and the others followed suit, Venge and Velvet both visibly reluctant – but they both knew that our lights made us easy to follow. Even now we weren't really hiding our location, but it would buy us a little time – provided an attack had been imminent, and I was fairly sure that was the case.

There was movement in the water. Nothing overt; no flopping around or loud splashing, but a subterranean body of water like this isn't going to make a lot of noise on its own, and any sound loud enough to carry in here had to be made by something alive. I was getting a bad feeling about this water.

"Check the wall," I whispered. "See if we can't climb up." Someone must have agreed, because I heard hands patting stone. I reached out and put a hand on the wall myself. We had to keep moving. Moving blind wasn't an option, but if we didn't go too fast, and we never strayed from the wall, that was at least theoretically workable. If we could be quiet, we might even balance the scales a little.

I felt a lot more confident with Lunch Box than I would've with that puny Glock I'd brought in originally. My hand was on the grip, but I left in it in the holster. This was a sensitive moment. No one wanted to make the first move.

I stumbled. My hand on the wall had suddenly found nothing but air. "Hold up," I whispered, and I heard the others behind me paused. I felt around a bit – there was something here, maybe an alcove, maybe a corridor. Taking random turns down here was a bad idea, but was it worse than staying near this water and whatever was in it?

"I found something," I said quietly. "Should we risk the light?"

"Do it," Velvet said.

I clicked it on, and it immediately lit up pale, wet, glistening skin. Because of what I'd seen before, the lack of clothing didn't take me completely by surprise. Now that I was much closer, the scaly qualities of the skin were more evident. But weird skin or no weird skin, she had a great body. The face was another matter entirely. There's having a face like a fish, and then there's having a fish for a face. This was definitely the second one.

Fins. Big, bulging eyes. Lips like balloons. Throbbing gills.

I was surprised at seeing it there, and the abomination clearly hadn't expected me to turn on my flashlight at that moment, so there was an awkward moment before I pulled Lunch Box and unloaded the whole magazine into it. And that was even more disturbing to hear than to see; the .44 was not a stealthy weapon.

The monster blew apart, and all hell broke loose. The other creatures had probably intended something a bit more tactful, but now that we'd seen what we were up against, they just came at us, emerging from the water in numbers that looked depressingly large in the light of our flashlights.

As I dropped the magazine from Lunch Box and slammed my final one in, I noted with disappointment that they were not all female. Well, maybe they were – but not the at least partially hot humanoid kind. It was hard to tell if they were more like fish or frogs. They were all very pale greyish-white, and some were pretty big. But it wasn't like I could look in detail; there were lights waving around and shooting and everything.

For that first instant, it was a bit like Pulp Fiction, only with five of us instead of two. The things came dripping out of the water and we just gunned them down with our pistols. But suddenly everyone was empty, myself included, and even past the ringing in our ears and the echoes of the gunshots, we could hear enough splashing and sloshing for at least five swim teams. They came on, croaking at us and reaching out with big, webbed hands with big, pointy claws. These things weren't bulletproof, but though they were sort of humanoid, they were scaly and tough. I knew exactly what those claws would do to soft targets like us.

"Run now," I said, impressed at my own calm. There are things you're prepared for, then there's being swarmed by fish people. To their credit, the others hadn't really needed the prompting. Velvet and Ever both had their knives in their hands, but neither looked very enthusiastic about mixing it up with an army like this in the dark.

On the other hand, I guess it didn't really matter how much light there was. Our flashlights were showing too many of them to handle, and if there had been proper light, all it would've shown us was just how hopeless the situation really was.


	15. Chapter 15

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 15

I wasn't crazy. Not full crazy, anyway. I was only beginning to understand the changes I was undergoing, and though I wasn't sure of my limits, I knew they had to exist. No matter how you looked at it, this wasn't a winning battle. Velvet was the reason I was still in the Ukraine, but it wasn't like I seriously thought I could protect her from everything.

This is the Zone. When it's time to go home, you're going home – no matter who's got your back. I was no joke, but neither was anyone else in this part of the world. Except Venge, maybe. There were battles I couldn't win, and situations I knew I wouldn't be able to get Velvet out of. Maybe this was one of them, but I'd be damned before I let her get taken by some people who – well, justifiably seemed to think they were fish and/or frogs.

I shoved her through into the gap, where she slipped on the messy remains of the female fish lady I'd blown away just moments before. Then I dragged Venge through and gave him a push. "You too," I said to Ever, who clearly intended to hang back.

There was no way we could fight this at the water's edge. We had to limit the number that could come at us, and this corridor, regardless of where it might lead, was the only option handy. Grigor followed Ever in, and I backed through after them, wondering how I was going to handle this.

Now that there was no shooting, and clearly no bullets, the creatures weren't hurrying. They'd gone full Romero, and were just crowding in at a deliberate pace. Where's a flaming easy chair when you need one? The circle was getting pretty tight when I got through the gap. Now it was one at a time, unless they wanted to put the females out front. Which would've been all right, because if you can sort of block out the head, the rest isn't so bad to look at. I'm not superstitious about the slimy skin, and these fish women were built.

Nope, they were sending the big ones. That was all right. I had a plan.

I kept backing up, listening to the others moving along behind me. If they ran into trouble, it'd be up to Ever. After me, he was probably the most reliable in close combat.

Once we'd gone far enough, I threw a knife into the knee of the seven foot tall monster lumbering after me.

I'd have preferred to kill him, but I wasn't sure how. His frog/fish head didn't leave much neck, so I wasn't confident about the throat. I'd have thrown it into his groin, but you don't do that to anybody, not even monster people. He was so big that I wasn't sure I could reach his heart, provided it was in the normal place, and certainly not with a thrown blade. The knee seemed like a safe bet. He let out a horrible croak and went down, causing several of those behind him to stumble – but they climbed right over him, so I crippled another one. Then I stopped and held my ground. The thing climbing over him slipped on his slick back, and I took advantage of that to go in.

For lack of a better idea, I went full-prison, and just shanked him in the abdomen as many times as I could in the space of about one second. He went down. Now we had three fairly bulky bodies blocking the passage. The others weren't squeamish about trying to climb over, and despite what I'd done, they weren't scared of me yet. The bodies weren't letting them come at me on their terms. A more careful one managed to get through with his balance intact, but I had a knife in each hand, and I knew how to use them. He joined the pile.

I didn't have enough knives to just throw them like a madman, and I no longer had the top-quality throwing knives that I'd brought with me into the Zone. These were random blades I'd picked up along the way. Combat knives, survival blades, folding knives, utility knives – I couldn't throw them reliably, and I thought my credibility would take a hit if I accidently bounced a handle off someone's forehead.

"Don't hover," I called without looking back. "You know I hate it when you hover. Find a way out." Of course the others had stopped when they realized what I was doing, but there was nothing they could do to help me. Depending on how bright these creatures were, either they already had, or would soon realize that they were going to have to come at us from the other way. We needed to have a way out by then. And if this was a dead end, well… well, I was going to run out of energy long before I could finish making fish sticks out of all of them.

Something was going on. They weren't backing off, but the push had stopped. The one in front and those just behind were staring, not that they could do anything else – I don't think you can blink if you've got eyes like that. "Yeah," I said. "You guys are pretty creepy. But not as creepy as my seventh grade guidance counselor." I pointed a knife at them. "So why don't you just go back in the water and let us go?"

I couldn't communicate with them. They were croaking at each other, and they had definitely been people once, but I couldn't connect with them at all. And if that meant what I thought it meant, then the situation was even worse than I thought. My hand wasn't giving me anything more than a vague danger warning. But there was nothing vague about this. It was inconsistent, and I wasn't loving it.

I'd never eat a fish sandwich again. One of them was edging forward.

"You'd go great with tartar sauce," I said, pointing my other knife at him. "I'll gut you… like a fish." Oh, what the hell. "I knew there was something fishy going on down here," I called over my shoulder.

Then my mirth faded. The creatures were passing something up through the tunnel. What was that? You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think it was…

I lunged forward and jammed both knives into the upper chest of the front monster, and muscled past him to slice down the other two. I snatched the Kalashnikov from the awkward claws of the female holding it – only the females would actually be able to get a claw through the trigger guard – and dodged back before anyone could do anything. They hadn't expected that – but now I had the rifle at my shoulder, and there was a clear shift in tone.

They certainly wouldn't have poured in here after us if we'd had real weapons.

"All right, well, like – don't follow me," I said, and after an awkward second or two, took off after the others.

It was a dead end. Well, it wasn't. The corridor opened into a round chamber with a high ceiling, and a big hole in the floor. The hole was full of water, and I had a feeling that there were some of the creatures down there just below the surface. They couldn't come out; we'd just kick them back in. I was willing to bet that if Velvet and the others had gotten here a moment or two later, they'd have already been up and through, and we'd have been hemmed on either side in the narrow corridor. See? It's not good to hover.

"Where the devil did you get that?" Ever asked, looking genuinely surprised.

"Fish men with AKs," I said, giving him a pitying look. "Get with the 90s."

"Are you all right?" Velvet asked.

"I'm fine. Keep lights on that." I pointed at the water. "How do we get out of here?" I addressed that to Ever. If anyone was going to have an idea, it would be him.

"I'm not sure we do," he admitted. "Especially if they've got more guns."

"They will. Stalkers will have been wandering down here over the years," Grigor said, and I was inclined to agree. The implication was in the open. We all moved away from the passageway, though if the fish people did start to shoot, the rounds would just ricochet around in here and hit us anyway.

And yet compared to the city in Velvet's mind, this situation, this cave deep under the Channel was like a Parisian vacation. Anything was better than that place, and what I'd be forced to watch if I ever found myself back there. Only now I was afraid I'd have to watch it here too. There's trapped, and then there's trapped. Which all knew which one this was.


	16. Chapter 16

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 16

"Should we try diving?" I asked Velvet.

"Yeah, because that worked out so well for everyone in Alien Resurrection," Venge said.

"Shut up."

Velvet folded her arms. "They wouldn't expect it, but it's their turf. We'd be better off to try to fight our way out dry."

"Not really an option. Especially if they have more guns."

"We don't even know if there's anywhere to come up for air if we go down. We don't know where to go – just flashlights, breath to breath?" Ever shook his head. "Too risky, even for me." He was probably right. Sources of air weren't a sure thing – these guys had gills, after all. They didn't need a place to come up because they had no reason to come up. There could be nothing but water down there for a hundred miles.

It wasn't looking good. Or rather, it hadn't been looking good for a while, it'd been getting worse, and now it looked pretty black. But by now everyone in that cave had been threatened with an unpleasant death at least once since entering the Zone. Some of us were more prepared than others, but none of us were kidding ourselves. Even Venge knew the Zone was a dangerous place, and that mortal peril was a part of it.

None of us were seeing a way out of this, and it affected each person in a different way. Venge was looking glum; Velvet didn't show any change; Grigor looked grim; Ever looked bemused in a subdued sort of way, but that would fade when he realized this was one he wasn't likely to think his way out of. You can think your way through a lot of things – but not tons of solid rock.

"Keep an eye on it," Ever said, nodding toward the passage. This annoyed me – partially because of impending death, and partially because I didn't like him ordering me around. I also knew that I was constantly telling people to do things, and they generally did them – but that didn't mean they liked it. And he was right; somebody had to keep an eye out.

So I pointed my light down the passage and kept the side, knowing the light itself made me a perfect target.

"Do you have a play here?"

"Does fighting our way out count as a play?" he asked. "We're better off dry than in the water; even if there was somewhere to go down there, we'd be hypothermic in minutes. Besides, we can't fight in the water – they'd have all the cards. I've seen what you can do. How about it?"

He was asking if I could actually fight our way out of here. Of course I couldn't. You can jog for a long time, or you can sprint for a short time. I hadn't fully explored just how far I could push my body into overdrive, but we'd have needed ten of me just to break through. It was true, I had power that other people didn't – but I didn't completely understand it, and it had to be rationed and used wisely. This wasn't Street Fighter; I couldn't just go in and hope for the best. Meter management 101.

On the other hand, we were in the corner with no options. If raw Ultra was all that was on the table, then that was exactly what these fish were going to get. They'd win in the end, but they wouldn't forget me.

I couldn't see any of them down there, but it wasn't like they'd left – they were probably camped outside the far opening. They'd had enough of being butchered in close quarters; as far as they were concerned, we could come to them. They had all the time in the world.

But we didn't. I'd been leaning against the rock, but now I straightened. There was a way – one way. It was a long shot, but I was getting used to that. It was also pretty clichéd, but cliché certainly seemed to have a place in this part of the world.

"If we're going to do this," I said, turning to the others. "We have to do it now." They knew what I meant. Waiting couldn't do us any good. The enemy's guard would be at its lowest now, while they were expecting us to stew here for a while. "The air was moving out there. Not much, but it was. There's more than one way to the surface from the lakes."

"What are you talking about?" Velvet asked, cocking her head. She spoke in Russian, but I went on in English.

"There's no use trying to go back. You'll never find your way back, and you'd still have to get through the rest of them. Your only chance is to go deeper." I checked the AK's magazine. It appeared to be full. "They didn't send us down here because there's no way out – they just didn't expect us to last long enough to find it."

"You want to hit them hard," Velvet said slowly. "So we can get away."

"Oh." Venge was picking up on. "You'd do that?"

I shrugged. "Not just me." I jerked a thumb at Ever. "Him too."

"I'm coming?" he looked surprised.

"Yeah."

"Good to know I have input."

"If you come it buys us twice as much time."

Grigor cleared his throat, and we all turned to look at him. "I'm sure that if dying heroically is what you want to do, someday you'll have your chance, young man – but not today. Not yet, at any rate."

"And I was looking forward to it too," Ever said. I jabbed him with an elbow.

"What have you got?" Hey – I hadn't been looking forward to it. It had been a last ditch sort of plan, and I'd liked the idea of going out knowing that Velvet at least had a shot. But if Grigor thought he had something, well, that worked for me. My plan was the kind that I was happy to see shelved.

The old stalker pointed his light up, and we all looked. "That is not stone," he said.

He was right. I hadn't been looking up with my flashlight, but there was a distinct discoloration, and it wasn't at all like the rest of the rock. But I still wasn't sure what I was looking at.

"What is it?"

"It's a foundation," Grigor replied, gazing up at it thoughtfully. "An old one. Half a century at least."

"We're pretty far down," I said, not liking where this is going. "What would be down here?"

"Only one thing," Velvet said. "We're still on the wrong side. I don't see what good this does us."

Grigor opened his bag and took out a cloth-wrapped bundle, handling it carefully. He drew back the fabric, and we all took a step back.

"You've been running with that?" Ever asked, looking impressed.

"Jesus Christ," I said, forgetting for a moment that I was supposed to be a Buddhist. Grigor was holding a respectable amount of what appeared to be very old TNT.

"You want to blast through," Ever said, looking dubious. I didn't blame him – I'd been there the last time we tried this, less than 24 hours ago. Neither one of us had enjoyed the experience.

But it wasn't like we had anything to lose. Grigor took the time to determine the location with the best chance of cracking the foundation, and then it was my job to climb up there and figure out a way to place the bomb. Velvet threw me her lighter, and I hurried to light the fuse before I came to my senses.

Maybe this would give us a way out, maybe it would bury us. Either way it beat a watery grave with the fish people. I dropped back down and hurried to join the others in the passage. We had an awkard wait; we'd thought it better to have too much fuse than too little, under the circumstances.

We couldn't even talk; we didn't want the enemy to know we were clustered in the passage, because if they had more weapons, we'd be easy kills. So we waited in silence.

All noises are worse in confined spaces, but this wasn't so bad, maybe because of our position in relation to the blast.

The passage shook, but we weren't afraid of bringing down the solid stone – the risk was that the foundation would crumble more than intended, and block us in the passage, away from whatever we'd opened up – and it almost happened.

Through the choking dust, we had to climb up a hill of rubble with very little clearance – but there was a gap up there. Not a big one. The Merc wouldn't have been able to get through, but it was enough for us.

Some of the water was still visible, and the fish people were swarming out of it even as we started to climb. I pivoted and put the AK to my shoulder, taking aim at the pale abominations scrambling up after us.

Something in the weapon snapped as I squeezed the trigger. I shouldn't have been surprised; that was what happened when you kept old guns in damp environments and never cleaned them. No wonder we hadn't been shot at – they had weapons aplenty, but none of them worked. I swung the AK into the nearest monster, smashing it across its bulbous head in a shower of wood and rust, then turned and hurried up after the others.


	17. Chapter 17

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 17

As we'd learned back on the outskirts, detonating explosives indoors is not optimal. We were all stunned by the explosion, but that didn't stop us from fleeing. The fish people came up after us, now that it was clear the frontrunners wouldn't have to eat a full magazine from that piece of junk masquerading as a rifle.

As the metal and splinters of the gun fell, I was scrambling up after my friends, and they were right behind me. After some desperate grabbing and a few kicks, I reached the break created by Grigor's TNT and hauled myself through. The opening was tight and jagged, but I made it.

Pale, slimy claws reached through after me. A sharp kick snapped one amphibian arm, and they backed down. The females could probably fit through, but they weren't that stupid. We didn't need to worry about the fish people anymore; now we had other things to worry about. I shoved Velvet, but I wasn't fast enough. A piece of the burst struck her in the back. Of course, none of us even heard the shots. None of us could hear anything but the ringing in our ears.

I whipped around a flung a knife. Venge was struggling with a door. Ever was shielding Grigor with his body, shouting something in Russian – that's Ever, always got his eye on the prize, always looking to defuse everything. There was no defusing this; Velvet was falling, and in the flickering light, there was much more to see, and no doubt to hear, not that any of us could hear.

You can't go around the Zone blasting through walls forever; sooner or later you're going to find something on the other side.

The charge had damaged the electrical systems of this new place, and the flickering lights weren't easy on the eyes. We were in a world of imperfect silence, flying bullets and papers, and the ringing in our ears.

Venge had the door open. I dragged Velvet up, heedless of the protests I couldn't even hear, and pushed her toward Ever. Blood was staining my black fatigues, but I didn't know where I was bleeding from. Velvet was still wearing my armor, and it had saved her life, though there'd be some nice black bruises along with her new tattoo to mar her perfect skin.

A screen exploded. Glass shattered. I ducked under the arm of a man in a white coat, snatched the pistol from his hand, and knocked him over. I could barely see; I couldn't hear at all. There was no time to kill, only to buy and sell.

Drawn to the chaos, a pale white female amphibian was wriggling through the hole. I released the pistol with my left hand, caught it with my right, and shot her twice as I spun away to roll out of the path of several more bullets from someone I couldn't see, and probably couldn't see me either. I didn't know what kind of party we'd crashed, but the people on the guest list had handguns at the very least.

The emergency lights were light flash bulbs or lightning, showing me my surroundings one frame at a time. I rose, revolving, looking for another target – but the others had already fled the room. I did the same, closing the metal door behind me in time to feel something thud against it on the other side. A fish woman, no doubt.

The corridor was narrow and cramped. Venge was in an intersection not far away, motioning frantically at me. There was a body on the floor, but I barely looked. Fresh blood decorated the gray concrete walls. There was rusted metal above and underfoot.

As I ran after him, time slowed down, and music began to fill the void that the blast had left in my hearing. We rushed through the corridors, stumbling over bodies, and it didn't seem at all strange to me that a song from the outside world would come to me now. Just like it would if I were working a boring hourly job somewhere, and my mind began to wonder after hearing some lame, overplayed pop song too many times from a tinny store speaker.

Because that was what this was. Business as usual. I caught the glare of a muzzle flash and turned back, pistol outstretched, to return fire. The gun bucked in my hand four times, and the slide locked back. My right hand lit up; I had hostiles in close. I dropped the magazine and threw it, then the pistol at the other man, rushing in as they both flinched.

Venge and the others were ahead. In the flashing light, I caught a glimpse of an ID badge clipped to a shirt. Americans.

One of them raised his gun, and he was out of reach. I dropped my foot on a rusted bit of railing, breaking it off and shooting up the other end to knock the gun aside as it discharged. I sensed the bullet ricocheting around the corridor as I drove both fists into the man's chest, knocking him off the walkway. I turned to deal with the other, letting a knife fall from my sleeve into my hand. He cocked a revolver and fired straight into my chest.

I caught the glare of a muzzle flash and turned back, pistol outstretched, to return fire. The gun bucked in my hand four times, and the slide locked back. I let it go and threw myself down, flicking out a knife to hamstring one man, while I tackled the other in the same slide. I rolled over and brought down both knives like spreading wings, plunging them into both of their chests. Then I was on my feet and running again.

The others weren't sure where to go. There was no way to know. Velvet, jaw locked against what must have been considerable pain, gamely chose a direction and moved. There was more blood on the walls. I hadn't put it there.

We entered a big room which had undergone at least some degree of renovation. There was a lot of technology around, but our eyes were immediately drawn to the two great glass holding tanks. They were both standing open. There was a body in one, and a lot of blood. We never stopped running.

A man in white appeared on a walkway above, and Ever pivoted, raising a pistol, but a drinker materialized behind the man and seized him, pulling him back into the dark. A great spray of blood fell from above, sparkling droplets falling to scatter across the sterilized counters and computers, splattering onto screens and papers. Ever's pistol was swinging toward me, and I dove clear as he fired back the way we'd come. I landed heavily, seeing words I wouldn't remember on the papers scattered beneath me.

I didn't stay down. No brakes, no breaks. Velvet could barely run, but everyone knew better than to try and help her. Grigor had been at his limit down in the caverns; he didn't have much left in him. He wasn't a young man anymore, and Ever was onto us. He knew what Velvet was up to, and that was why he was protecting Grigor. Just what kind of Duty man was he?

I thought about that as we tore through another corridor, and up a flight of metal stairs. The ceiling was high here, but the corridor was still stiflingly narrow. A catwalk spanned it ahead, and a man in American military garb was running across. He skidded to a stop, putting an AR to his shoulder and shouting something at us. Good.

If they didn't want us getting out, maybe we were headed for an exit. I boosted from the left wall, then the right, catching hold of the catwalk and vaulting up to sweep the soldier's legs from under him. I kicked the carbine off and followed it, hitting and rolling to follow the others, who hadn't even broken pace.

There were more blood and bodies ahead. In a way, that was encouraging. In another way, it wasn't. Had these men fled for the exit? Whatever had killed them was ahead.

Though we only a ran a fraction of the distance we had in the tunnel, it felt like much longer because we were all deaf. We all knew exactly what had happened; that didn't make it any easier.

American soldiers appeared ahead, but they weren't attacking, they were trying to get out, too.

"Follow them!" I called to the others, scooping up a handgun, though I couldn't even hear myself. Something grabbed my ankle, and I went down hard, losing the pistol. I snatched it back up and rolled over with it outstretched in both hands. A drinker materialized on the floor. It was wounded, and one of its claws was securely on my ankle. Glowing red eyes were fixed on the gun. I had all three dots between his eyes.

"You don't want me," I said. But it did. If it didn't drink, it wouldn't regenerate. If it didn't regenerate, it would never see the surface. And it wanted to see the surface just as badly as I did. Only one of us was getting up there. Some people say the Zone has only one law. Others say it has none. Both schools of thought pointed to one course of action, so I did the opposite. I lowered the gun.

Bullets struck the creature in succession, throwing out gouts of gummy black blood, and bits of bone. Venge advanced, firing rapidly until he was standing over the drinker. He held out the gun and fired the final bullet into the monster's skull. He let the empty pistol fall and held his hand out to me.

We were both wearing gloves. He couldn't feel how cold my hand was as he pulled me to my feet.


	18. Chapter 18

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 18

The road through was not as long as the road up. There was an endless shaft to the surface, stairs running up each wall, around and around, more flights than I could count. They were metal and rusted, each feeling as though it would give beneath our feet, but we had to run, because there were soldiers below shooting at us. We couldn't hear the shooting – just a dull thudding that we could feel, and we could see the sparks flying from the walls and the railings.

There were bodies on the stairs. This clearly wasn't the optimal way in or out of the facility, but if some of the people who worked here had chosen it, it must have an outlet. And it did. A pair of rusting double doors led into a garage with a gravel floor. Wooden spars were piled around the threshold, as though the door had at one time been barricaded. Something had broken through.

Sunlight streamed in through a raised shutter, rusted in place. The remains of a stalker long dead were in the corner. I couldn't hear the click of my Geiger counter, but I could see the needle jumping.

"We have to get out," I shouted to Ever, who saw my gestures and motioned the others outside. We didn't know what was out there or where we were, but we couldn't hang around with radiation levels that high.

I checked my counter again, finding the situation much more reasonable. After a tense moment in which we all looked around sharply, fearing immediate danger, everyone paused just to breathe in the fresh air.

The sun was out. We were in a small glade that had to be near the Channel. I could see buildings through the trees, but not many. This wasn't an industrial sector. Probably one of the farms, which meant we were farther south than I realized. Those tunnels must not have been as twisty as I thought.

We couldn't stay. That installation down there, whatever it was – the Americans didn't want anybody knowing about it. What soldiers were left would have to come up and look for us. They wouldn't follow far, but they'd come into the daylight. Velvet knew it too. She consulted her compass only briefly; we all knew which way we had to go.

North.

The ringing was dying down. Sound was returning. We were battered and bloody, exhausted beyond logic or reason, but I was the only one who wasn't smiling. And when I realized that, I smiled too. It felt good to be in the open.

We had to hope that those Americans had been up to no good, because we'd sure messed up whatever they'd been doing. Blowing their electrical system had also blown their security measures. Now half of them were dead, and the other half were in big trouble. It wasn't their fault; I doubt the Ukrainian scientists who'd originally occupied that facility had known what it was built over. No one could have predicted any of it.

Well, from what little I'd seen, and what I'd read between the lines, those Americans and the fish people deserved each other. And they were lucky at that; the fish people certainly weren't the strangest things living underneath the Zone, unknown to the world at large. As Velvet's favorite wizard said, there are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world. It was true then, and it was arguably even more true now.

We could warn people, but the warnings would become rumors. Rumors would become stories, stories would become legends, and legends would become myths. It had taken me a while to understand how things worked here, but I finally did.

Five people walking through the trees in the Ukraine. It's stranger than it sounds. We weren't actually all that far from Kevorich; we'd overshot it when we were underground, and that only made it all harder to swallow. Who would believe anything like this could happen so close to home?

Clear Sky hid in their bogs. The Bar at Rostov was only beginning to rebuild. The Rookie village was failing. Duty was hostile to everyone. The Bandits were scattered and disorganized, even more so than before. Something had driven them from their underground hiding place, and they'd returned to the Zone in such small numbers that many questions circulated about whether the others were hiding or dead.

There weren't many places left where a stalker could lay his head without fear of losing it in the night. Kevorich was high on that short list of sanctuaries. Indeed, it might be better not to say anything about what lurked beneath; maybe it was better to just let the status quo ride. No one had ever heard of fish people bothering anyone on the surface, after all.

The time had come. We were at the edge of the trees; we would follow the road along the Channel the rest of the way to Kevorich. But not all of us.

Ever checked the magazine of the pistol he'd appropriated underground, and grimaced. He started to thumb the rounds out of the magazine, and load them into one of his spares for his own CZ 100.

"I'll just be on my way, then."

Velvet sighed. "We owe you."

He shook his head. "Patches don't mean anything." He holstered his gun, and threw the freshly emptied one to Grigor. "We're all brothers here."

"I wish that were true," Velvet replied. They were speaking Russian, and I didn't want to miss anything, so I cut in using English.

"Do you have to go back?" I didn't have to like Ever to recognize his value.

"Oh, yes." He turned to Velvet. "You know nothing can ever be the same if you do this."

"Change is coming no matter any of us do," Velvet replied. "We just have to make a case for the future we prefer."

"Well said." Grigor was seated against a tree. His eyes were closed. Poor old man – he needed rest, but we didn't dare stop before reaching Kevorich. No one wanted to see Ever go, except possibly me, but he couldn't be talked out of it. The prospect of traveling halfway across the Zone by himself? Didn't seem to bother him. In fact, the ordeal hadn't appeared to phase him at all, but he wasn't fooling anyone. I didn't think I'd ever met a prouder man more fixated on his ego and vanity in my life. Would it really be so hard for him to just admit he was as tired and scared as the rest of us?

Of course, as a man openly serving Duty, he probably wouldn't be too welcome at Kevorich. Maybe going his own way was for the best. I stayed out of it, but there was something I needed from him before he left. I told the others I'd catch up. That got me some questioning looks, but as a rule, stalkers aren't nosy people.

Grigor looked like he was walking underwater, and Velvet was moving gingerly. Venge actually seemed all right in terms of injuries, but he was worn down. I watched them head for the water, then turned back to Ever, taking the folded letter from my pocket.

"Can you see this?" I asked.

"Why wouldn't I be able to?"

Because I'd picked it up in the Valley, and I wasn't sure it really existed, that was why. "You're German, aren't you?"

He smiled. "Yes."

"Then you can read this, right?" I ignored the look he gave me as I handed it over.

"Is this Norwegian?"

"I think so. Can't you tell?"

"I suppose. Did I forget to mention that I'm German, not Norwegian?"

"It's not similar enough to tell? Like Spanish and Portuguese?"

Ever sighed, rubbed at his eyes, and scanned the letter. "I can't read it, not really. But I know what it is."

"Really? How?"

"Because I've got one. Or I had one. I don't know what my wife's done with my files." He handed it back to me. "It's a letter of acceptance to Cambridge. See? Of course I'm an Oxford man, myself." He pointed at the emblem in the corner. Like I was supposed to know what the Cambridge thing looked like. Except it did say Cambridge there, didn't it? I should've looked closer at it.

"What?"

"I don't need to read Norwegian to know that much."

"Huh." I looked down at it.

"Linguistics, I think." I looked up at him.

"Really?"

"I think so. You know, you could ask Velvet to read it for you."

"Yeah, no. Did I just accidentally show you her real name?"

"I already knew her name," Ever said, yawning.

I gave him a look, then I figured it out. "You've seen the painting," I said.

"She can enjoy a little anonymity here. Don't ruin it for her."

As if I would. It hurt to say it. "Thanks," I grumbled, stuffing the letter back into my pocket.

"I live to serve," Ever said, gave me a salute, and strolled off into the trees. I looked at the Channel, then I looked back after him. He wasn't alone. There was someone there with him, and I didn't recognize him – but I did. I'd seen this guy before, in the ship, when I'd been suspended with Sagaris by the cultists. He'd been following the Biker back then. He couldn't be real; he couldn't be. I still had at least a little capacity for telling the difference between reality and illusion. Didn't I? I looked at my hand, then at Ever, who appeared to be alone again.


	19. Chapter 19

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 19

We weren't moving fast, mostly due to exhaustion, but we still made it to Kevorich by nightfall. Velvet had been holding something back on the way, because as we approached, she stood up straighter, and her eyes brightened up. I don't know how she did it. At first I wasn't sure what she had in mind, but her plan became clear as she pulled out her beret, dusted it off, and put it on, then uncovered her Freedom patches. Grigor looked exhausted, but resigned.

At first I thought this was going to be a huge shame, because we were showing up so battered. It wouldn't be a very impressive entrance. Well, I was wrong. It was plenty impressive. The effect Velvet's appearance had on the stalkers at Kevorich can't really be described. One minute there was loud music, loud people, and loud everything. The next you could've heard a pin drop. I'd tell you about what happened, but I wasn't paying attention.

We were barely through the gate, and Russet had rushed out and thrown her arms around me, and I was a little distracted. She meant business; I wondered where she'd gotten this upper body strength. But there are worse things than being hugged by a pretty girl in a territory populated overwhelmingly by men. What the hell? I hugged her back. Russet knew Velvet was on her side, and she knew that the women at Kevorich would look out for her, but I was the only person in the Zone that she viewed as someone from her own world.

Tyrian had emerged as well. She was looking bored and surly, so I smiled at her, and she tried not to smile back. I think she was glad to see me too. I hadn't really been giving these two much thought. To be fair, I'd had a lot on my mind. Things had happened. You don't think about your far off friends when there are fish people after you. How long had we been gone? A few days? I'd lost track a long way back.

It seemed like Russet had been pretty worried. She'd buried her face in my chest, and she wasn't coming out. That was okay; she was nice and warm, and Velvet had been wearing my armor for quite a while now. When I wasn't running or fighting, it was actually very cold.

"Good trip?" she mumbled.

"Could've been worse," I said. She finally let go.

"Are you all right?"

That was a tricky question. I decided to give her a general answer. "More or less."

"What happened to your neck?"

I couldn't see the wound, but it wasn't serious. It had just bled a lot; I think it was shrapnel in the facility. "Just a scratch," I told her without a hint of irony. That was funny; I noticed my hands were on her waist. How had they gotten there? I folded them behind my back and tried to keep my smile natural. Well, natural for a guy who hadn't slept in days. Tyrian rolled her eyes.

"So what happened?"

I blinked. "Well, there was the – well, I'll skip that. There was the Valley, that was sort of neat. And then we got kidnapped by people whose parents shouldn't have let them watch Saw, but we got away. Then we ended up underground, and there were fish people."

She laughed. They both did. Yeah, the sisters seriously, honestly, genuinely thought I was kidding. And that was fine.

I turned to look at Velvet and Grigor. They were busy. I didn't care about what they were doing. Velvet was safe here, under the circumstances. I could relax, and I intended to. "Let me get a shower," I said. "Then we can catch up over something to eat, all right?"

"Who's that?" Tyrian asked, appearing at my side, her gaze fixed on Grigor.

"Our new best friend."

Amazingly, Velvet wasn't the only one drawing attention. People remembered me, too. After all, I was the champ. Nobody paid any attention to Venge.

You remember those fights I won? I do. And so did the big guy who watched me from the doorway once I'd gotten into the shower. I know. Weird.

"What do you want, man?" I asked without looking up. Sometimes I think Russians go out of their way to make things unpleasant. It wasn't even unscented soap in the shower – which was cold, by the way – it was scented, but the scent was something chemical that made you think that if you got it in your eyes you'd have to become a lawyer and fight crime in a red spandex. "If you want a conversation, I need a towel." Now I looked up. The big guy took a step into the shower room. "Ender's Game, anybody? Actually, can you even read?" He wasn't as big as the Merc, but he had the brutish thing down.

He smirked, then turned and left. Apparently just because I wasn't six feet tall and eight hundred pounds, I was some kind of joke. I seriously considered walking to the wall and going Deus Ex style right through the tiles to put him in a chokehold, but I decided I didn't care that much. I had a feeling I'd be beating him up later, though.

I didn't linger. There was a lot of commotion in the courtyard; Velvet and Grigor, no doubt. Russet caught me outside. She was really glowing. I don't think she'd expected to see us again. And I could see why that would be a big deal to her. She and her sister were for all intents and purposes alone in the most dangerous place in the world. Of course she'd have it rough if her only friends went off without a word and didn't come back for days. It was only natural.

The Biker was no longer in the hospital tent, but Sagaris was there, and he was looking a lot better. I thought he'd be happier to see me, but seemed very grim.

"Hail," he said.

I sat down by his bed and sighed. "This is going to sound weird, but you're lucky you were here and not with us."

He smiled, but he still didn't look happy. I wasn't sure what was eating him, but his situation was bad. The Zone is not a good place to be injured.

"What's going on out there?" he asked.

"Velvet and Grigor are recruiting."

"Openly?"

"Very openly."

He sighed. "This is going to get worse before it gets better."

"Not necessarily." But yes, probably. There was something I'd wanted to ask him. "What's going to happen when you're back on your feet? Going to get out?"

"Out of the Zone? Not yet. I still have things to do." Man, the way he said that was dark. I was guessing there was someone out there he didn't like very much, and today that person was on his mind. I decided to change the subject.

"Are you all paid up here?"

He nodded. "The Biker."

"He's feeling better?"

"You could say that."

That was good to hear. I'd have liked to stay a little longer, but Sagaris clearly wasn't feeling very talkative. I decided to let him off the hook and excused myself; we could chat tomorrow. I went off to find the girls.

It had been so long since I'd eaten that I actually had to be careful not to make myself ill. The food at Kevorich didn't help. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad, just heavy. Stalkers aren't worried about their arteries.

Russet and Tyrian got me caught up on the things that had gone on while we were away. The Biker had made a miraculous recovery, then stepped into the ring and beat up a number of people. No surprise; he wasn't someone you wanted to tangle with. In fact, I was surprised there was anybody who'd agree to do it. But hey, these were people who mostly came to the Ukraine by choice rather than necessity – they couldn't all be the best and brightest.

It seemed like the sisters' stay with Kevorich's prostitutes had been eye opening for both of them, but they were both too embarrassed to talk about it much. It seemed like the lady who ran the place had spent a lot of time trying to recruit them, even Tyrian. Of course her attempts had failed, but Russet was disturbed because Tyrian was very much underage, and no one seemed to care. They'd explained to her that in the exclusion zone, there wasn't any national sovereignty, and thus no laws. But to Russet, it wasn't a legal matter, it was a… like universal legal matter or something.

I wasn't sure what to say; it was an amazingly complex subject. Overall, I determined that they hadn't really been miserable. In fact, I think Tyrian was sort of enjoying herself. She was the curious type, and even stuck at Kevorich, there was no way she was going to be bored in the Zone. She could sit and watch the stalkers come and go all day. I got the impression she'd been a bit sheltered before her family's life had gone to hell. And frankly, when you're dragged into the Ukraine in an ill-advised and ill-fated attempt to protect you, which fails miserably, it's great if you can enjoy anything.

She seemed like a pretty tough kid, even if she did wear one of those black Hot Topic hoodies with pink hearts on it. Both sisters were tough, but they hadn't even begun to see what the Zone really was. And if they were lucky, they'd never have to.


	20. Chapter 20

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 20

As the girls and I relaxed in the canteen, we just had to do our best to ignore the gazes of the other stalkers. I was eating; Russet and Tyrian were both drinking hot chocolate. The drink menu was pretty limited, which surprised me. Stalkers were supposed to be a hard drinking lot, so you'd expect a place like this to have a pretty well-stocked bar. Well, it was well-stocked, but not with variety. If you wanted something that wasn't cheap beer, cheap vodka, or cheap whiskey, the odds weren't in your favor. And the sauce was cheap, but that didn't stop the barman from charging an awful lot of rubles for it.

We'd been able to hear the general hubbub generated by Velvet's appearance at Kevorich for a while, but it had begun to die down a bit. It was getting late, after all. It seemed clear that things had gone well for her, if the conversation among the stalkers was anything to go by. That was nice and all, but remember I wasn't interested in Freedom, I was interested in Velvet. Obviously it was good if her ventures succeeded, but at the moment, I just wanted to talk with two normal people. Russet and Tyrian obliged. Tyrian had opened up a bit while we were gone, and it seemed like she was beginning to adjust to her new life.

It couldn't last forever. Things quieted down further, and we all looked up. Velvet had come into the canteen, and the Biker was with her. Grigor was probably resting. For a second it was like an old west saloon when Clint Eastwood came in with his squint turned all the way up, but the stalkers noticed, and quickly went back to talking.

Velvet eyes flicked toward the wall, where various photos of women had been tacked up. Only three of the photos were of her, not counting the one where her face had been lovingly pasted over that of a well-endowed nude model. She pretended not to notice, and she and the Biker joined us at our table. There was just enough room for her not to touch anyone.

"How'd it go?" I asked.

"No one wanted to see Freedom go," the Biker said. He looked all right, but that wasn't anything to go by. You wouldn't know if he was hurt or not; he wasn't the type to let on. "There are plenty ready to pledge, now that there's critical mass."

"People who were lying low, too. Survivors from old Freedom," Velvet added.

I nodded. I'd expected that. "So what's the problem?" It wasn't like I could fail to notice the edge on both Velvet and the Biker. Or rather, the edge that was sharper than normal.

They exchanged a glance. "We're in trouble," Velvet said.

"How?" Russet asked.

"The money you wired with the uplink came through, but someone tracked the transaction. Your enemies on the outside know you're here."

"Oh, God."

"They've hired someone to kill or capture you."

"How do you know this?" I asked. The Biker held up his PDA.

"I was approached for the job."

"Why didn't you say you'd take it?"

"Because I wasn't asked by the client."

I blinked. "I'm missing something here," I said.

Velvet looked down at the table for a moment. There were dark circles under her eyes. She hadn't rested. Her back, where she'd been hit, had to be killing her. "It looks like they hired the Dane."

"If it was really the Dane that contacted me," the Biker said.

"I think it was." Velvet looked at Russet and Tyrian. "The controlling stock is worth over a hundred million; they're not going to spare any expense for these two."

"Who is the Dane? What's he got that we can't handle?" They were saying the word Dane like it had a capital D. Which I supposed it did in any case, now that I thought about it.

"He's not an operator," the Biker said. "He won't come here himself. He's a facilitator. He makes things happen. He's good."

I didn't have to ask how good; if people in general knew about him, and he had the Biker's respect, then it was safe to assume this guy had a well-established reputation.

"He does things differently," Velvet told me. "He's strange. It's never what you expect. He always achieves his objective, but he often does it in a way you won't see coming. It's like – like if he wants to kill someone, he won't shoot them or blow them up, he'll tear down their life until they commit suicide. He'll do things you can't defend against, or wait you up, let you lower your guard yourself, rather than going to the trouble of smashing through it."

"I've heard that one too," the Biker said.

Russet looked like she was going to faint. Tyrian's eyes were wide.

"You freaking serious?" she said, and Velvet looked surprised. This was the first time the girl with purple hair had spoken to her.

"Unfortunately," she said in her English, which had suddenly become awkward, as though speaking to an American took away her confidence.

"Sounds like a charmer," I said.

"But we shouldn't have to worry about him pulling any fast ones here," the Biker said. "This is the Zone. No laws, no games. The Dane will have hired one or more assassins, and it's going to be plain and simple."

"What do we do about it?" I asked.

"It's a race," Velvet said.

"What?" Russet cocked her head.

"A race to Yantar. If we can get there and fortify it, we'll have the best chance of protecting you," the Biker said. "The Dane's operator will try to hit us on the way. It's what anyone would do – it's a long road, and he'll have a thousand opportunities. We'll have to take some steps to improve your chances, but it's still risky. You're up against the A list. Your odds aren't good."

Russet swallowed. Tyrian sighed. Velvet and I both glared at the Biker, who just drank down his cup of vodka.

"Dick," I said. He poured himself another.

"We can do this," Velvet said.

"Nobody's ever beaten the Dane," the Biker reminded her.

"We can. But we have to move."

"We go at dawn."

I sighed. "How many men have you got?"

"Nearly twenty."

"That's a good start."

"It'll be forty by the time we reach Yantar," Velvet said confidently. I didn't doubt her – provided we could all stay alive that long.

"At least we'll have a head start on Duty," I said.

"We don't," the Biker stated flatly. I stared at him.

"They're here," Velvet told me, looking down at her cup. "They're at the gate. They'll know by the end of the week at the latest."

"Duty's here – and they just let you walk in here?"

She let out a small laugh. "I'm not sure these two really qualify as Duty. They're not reliable witnesses."

Could it be? "Where are they?"

"Outside, by the gate." I pushed back my chair and got up. "Rearm tonight," she warned. "We go at dawn."

Like she'd leave without me. I told the girls I'd be back, and left the canteen.

"Mist!" Slayer and Dixon both spotted me at the same time, and both waved their arms like the shout might not have attracted my attention. I went over, shaking my head.

"You guys," I said, trying not to smile. They'd upgraded; they were both wearing full Duty armor, with shoulder pads and everything. There was a mask on both of their backs. Maybe next time I saw them they'd be in exoskeletons.

"How are you, man?" Slayer clapped me on the back. "Glad you're still alive."

"You guys too."

"Where did you find all these chicks?" Dixon demanded. "Maybe we should join Freedom," he said to Slayer, who laughed.

"Why not?" I cut in, sobering quickly. I reached out and grabbed both of them by the shoulder. "Why don't you?"

They exchanged a glance, then laughed even louder. "We're Duty, man." Slayer shrugged, grinning.

"For life." Dixon grinned, thumping a hand to his chest. "Dude, tell him what we saw."

"Bro, you wouldn't even believe this – bloodsucker like twelve feet tall. Arms like tree trunks. Size of a house – if the sucker hadn't had a bum leg, he'd have got us."

I couldn't help myself; my jaw dropped. "How did you stop it?" I asked.

They looked at each other again, looking shocked. "You believe us?" Slayer asked, eyes shining.

"Of course," I said. After all, I'd seen the Blood Demon myself. I'd given him that bum leg with my .44 Desert Eagle, Lunch Box.

"No one else does," Dixon sighed. "They say there's no bloodsucker like that in the Zone."

"Well – there is," I said.

"You don't have to tell us," Slayer said, throwing out his arms. "We fought the son of a bitch."

Dixon patted his rifle. "Gave him the Beowulf," he said.

"He did not like that," Slayer chimed in. "Not one bit."

"Did you kill it?"

"Nah, but he ran off."

"Pussy. We're godlike. We're going to the Center, peace peace peace," Dixon said, trying not to laugh. They high-fived. "Yeah, we're the best."

I really would have liked to hang out with them a while longer, but I had to see the trader before he closed up for the night, and if we were leaving at dawn, that wasn't really that far off. Faction responsibilities; it looked like all three of us were starting to learn about those.

[Author note: there's a Zone Wallpaper on the blog, it's pretty sick. Pseudozone dot blogspot dot com.] - Wish


	21. Chapter 21

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 21

Ah yes, the open road. To everyone's amazement, we really did get out of Kevorich at dawn. I hadn't slept, but I'd replenished my gear and eaten, so compared to the state I'd been in the evening before, I felt pretty good. Grigor wasn't thrilled with sallying forth so promptly, but he knew that at the end of the road he'd be able to rest in relative security.

Besides, it's really not that stressful traveling with such a large group. Heck, as long as you're not walking out front, you don't even have to watch for anomalies. Very, very rarely did this many people move together in the Zone, and when they did, even the herds of carnivorous mutants steered clear. We had the Biker with us, the Merc, and several other stalkers that I had been told were also heavy hitters.

It really wasn't an unpleasant way to spend the day. I'd have liked to sort of mingle with some of the new Freedom stalkers, but Russet and Tyrian were attached to me. That didn't cut me off completely, because it will come to no surprise to anyone that almost all of these men found the time to stop by and introduce themselves to the ladies. There was a Scottish guy that I really liked; he called himself Jester, and he told a lot of jokes, but he was carrying an RPK on his back, so he meant business.

We were all wearing Freedom patches; I don't know where Velvet had been keeping them, and she was actually having people take off their fatigue jackets so she could sew them on while we walked, something that many of the men watched with interest. A beautiful woman enacting a uniquely domestic scene on the move, in the Zone. It wasn't something you saw every day.

This was what being in a faction was supposed to be like. Suddenly surviving a year in the Zone didn't seem so far-fetched. This was how people did it – they banded together. They looked out for each other.

Despite our numbers, we couldn't let down our guard. We had to pause and hide when there was dust on the horizon: three big supply trucks traveling on the dirt road. Trucks like that could only be going one place: Duty HQ. Velvet watched, looking grim. She wasn't pleased; the Incursion had left Duty in decent shape, in spite of the disastrous battle for Chernobyl, which had left no winners.

Duty was organized and growing fast. They were changing, adapting to new needs in a new Zone. It only got worse when a combat helicopter appeared, this time coming from the south. It stayed high, but through my binoculars I could clearly see a masked sniper in open the hatch. He wasn't shooting, just watching us. Slayer and Dixon had dutifully reported their findings, though I doubted either one of them understood the implications. Duty knew we were out here.

I'd talked about this at length with Velvet. There was a lot of ambiguity; no one was sure exactly what they'd do. The worst case scenario was that they would simply attack outright, and crush Freedom for good before it had time to gain strength. That happening was unlikely for a variety of reasons. Public relations, and differing ideologies within Duty itself being the most important ones. If Duty attacked unprovoked, they would never live it down. Even now, neutral stalkers that had once been friendly to Duty were alienated because of the stance they had taken beside the Military. If Duty ever wanted to put that behind them, they had to take the high road here and now. But anything could happen, and Velvet just had to do her best to be ready for as many outcomes as possible. Commanders get to boss people around, but at the end of the day, they really do have the worst job. I already understood why Velvet was only willing to stay a year, but this added new color to it.

It was a tense moment as we watched the chopper fly overhead. Velvet gave the order not to fire, and not even to take aim. She believed Duty would ultimately find a way to make her their enemy – but she didn't want to just hand it to them.

We walked on. The road from Kevorich to Yantar was long, though at least our group was able to move a good pace. We had to leave the Channel, go around the north faces of the Plateau, cross the gap, then go south around Rostov. It would've been faster to cut through the plains between the Trainyard and the old Army Compound, but Velvet didn't want to risk getting too close to Duty's forward outpost there, which now occupied real estate that had previously been Freedom HQ. Taking that route would inevitably expose us to Duty scouts, and she was afraid an impulsive officer would make a bad decision.

So instead we went south, a much longer road that would take us near the northern borders of the Garbage, then down through the steep hills that would allow us to approach Yantar from the east. Of course the plant there was uninhabitable because of the radiation, but the laboratory base camp in the valley was our real destination. It wasn't the best base in the Zone, but Velvet was only setting up there for Grigor's benefit – it had been one of the conditions of his joining her. He wanted the laboratory facilities for his research. I had a feeling that once Yantar was secure, Velvet would quickly establish another base if Freedom's numbers justified it, and that one would be more tactically sound.

The Biker explained to me some of the pros and cons of the Yantar Valley as a defensible position. He was convinced we would have to fight Duty there – maybe next week, maybe next year – but it was going to happen. I hoped it was next year, because I didn't really feel like doing that.

We walked over ground littered with casings, and underneath ancient power lines infested with plantlike anomalies that made the air above a hazy miasma that smelled strongly of ozone. We heard the moaning of the Zone, and we could see the distant flashes of lightning in the dark on the horizon that marked Chernobyl NPP.

Crows lined the roofs of old wooden houses in the deserted villages we passed through, listening to the echoes of scratching and movement in the deep, dry wells. The stalkers sang songs and told jokes, playing practical jokes over the open channel with their PDAs, and boasting about what they would do if Duty tried anything.

We might have made the journey in a full day's march, though it would have been very, very dark by the time we reached Yantar – but Velvet wasn't interested in getting us there fast. She swerved our course here and there, taking us to places I didn't know existed. Encampments I'd never heard of. She was recruiting, of course – but that wasn't all she was doing.

Remember, this wasn't just about starting a faction to rival Duty. It was about starting a new kind of faction altogether.

Velvet's business plan was in full effect. With the venture capital she'd gotten from the sisters, things were already taking shape. Money and artifacts were changing hands at a dizzying pace. It got to the point where we couldn't even go near the chest of artifacts because the radiation was too high; we had to drag it ten meters behind us with a rope. Grigor assured me there was a lead vault at the Yantar laboratory we could use to store them safely until they could be collected by Velvet's buyers.

Yes, the Zone's first entrepreneur – who just happened to be a woman – was making a powerful start.

We stumbled on a small band of rookies who were beset by bandits. Velvet scored four new recruits right there; that was all it took. It was a good day.

We set up camp on the outskirts of the Garbage, where we were protected by tall trees, and taller hills. The stalkers built fires and set up tents. There were two with guitars, and another actually carried around a snare drum on his back. You wouldn't expect to find such talented musicians in a place like this, but tonight I wanted quiet. I saw Velvet slip away, and that was a good excuse to do so myself – someone had to keep an eye on her.

She was climbing one of the hills, and I went after her.

"Don't you ever sleep?" She settled down where there was a good view. The moon was bright, and the valley to the west stretched out in front of us.

"No," I replied honestly. I couldn't tell her that every time I closed my eyes all I could see was Velvets being slaughtered by the dozen, but I couldn't lie to her either. "No, I don't. Who could sleep down there anyway?" We could hear them in the distance; it was a Beatles song. I didn't know the title.

She looked over at me with a raised eyebrow, then smiled. "You're strange," she said.

"I wasn't always." It's true. In fact, before I'd come to the Zone, I'd been pretty boring. Video games, martial arts, girls. School. Pretty much in that order, too.

Grigor cleared his throat, and we both jumped. He was perched on a boulder a short distance up the slope.

"Hey, what if we'd come up here to make out?"

Velvet put her face in her hand. "Does that seem likely to you?"

I sighed. "I guess not." After all, I knew. I noticed that Grigor's gaze was fixed on something.

"What is it?" I asked, and he pointed. Velvet and I both followed his finger. There was a soft glow down in the valley. I hadn't noticed it before; it was far off, and subtle. I'd left my pack in camp; my binoculars were in it. Velvet was thinking the same thing; I could see her squinting in the moonlight.

"One of the Wandering Anomalies," Grigor said, reading our minds. "The Twilight Shower."


	22. Chapter 22

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 22

We both stared at Grigor in disbelief. He looked over and frowned at us, then shook his head and smiled. "I saw it up close years ago," he said, then waved a hand. "Go on, children."

Velvet and I exchanged a glance. Children was a good way to describe us; we both scrambled up and took off down the hillside like we'd just heard the bell for recess. I hadn't been in the Zone long, but I knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. We weren't tired anymore, and considering Velvet's height and physique, she was amazingly fleet of foot. I had to work to keep up. There was a light mist in the valley, and that was why the glow had appeared so faint. Once we reached the bottom of the hill, we could see the anomaly more clearly, though it was still a long way off.

Rather than slowing down, we sped up.

It was an enormous weeping willow tree, and there were thousands of fireflies dancing in the air around it. As we approached, we could hear the faint strumming of a guitar. Panting for breath, we both stopped just short of the outermost branches, which hung low. Fireflies were all around us.

The Morton Stalker was sitting against the trunk of the tree, plucking at his guitar and singing. "…I would understand… the boy, a bit too insane – icing over a secret pain. You know you don't belong…" He looked up. "Oh, hey."

"Hallo," Velvet said, and yes, it did come out sounding like that. Even more than usual; I guess she was just so taken aback that she couldn't be bothered to speak English. So was I; I mean, Third Eye Blind?

The Morton Stalker took his hand off the guitar and pointed a finger at us. "Okay, you guys know only one of you can come in here, right?"

"What?"

"Just one." He shrugged. "That's how it is. It ought to be you," he said, pointing at me.

There was a long pause as we took that in. I'd heard the rumors about this thing. What it could do for you.

"No," I replied, shaking my head. "She needs it more than I do."

"You'd know best," the Morton Stalker said, plucking at the guitar again. "And by best, I mean not best. But it's a literal free country."

Velvet was giving me a questioning look. Her eyes were shining, not from the fireflies, but with hope. She could have asked anything of me right there. The temptation was strong, but not stronger than her hold one me. I swallowed and stepped back, motioning her forward before I lost my nerve. "Go on."

She turned back to the willow, and steeling herself, parted the branches and stepped in. Nothing happened.

"You, huh? All right." He put aside his guitar and clasped his hands, looking up at Velvet. "I can give you want you want – well, no, not what you want. I can give you what you need. Now, I don't know what you've heard, but this isn't free. It'll cost you, and I always come out of a deal on top," he said, pointing at himself.

"Cost what?" I asked.

"Hey!" He picked up the guitar and shook it at me. "You shut up." Velvet looked over her shoulder at me, then turned back to the Morton Stalker.

"I want to know too," she said.

"You know, you might actually be happier if you don't," he told her. "I'm serious."

"Just tell me."

"I don't give gifts," the Morton Stalker said. "I loan them. I'll be back for what I give you, and I'll take something else when I come."

"What?"

"Nothing much. Just whatever's most important to you, at the time."

There was another pause. Velvet didn't look back. Something told me that if I said something now, she wouldn't be able to hear me. I wouldn't even be able to go in to pull her out of there – this was something Velvet had to do herself.

The Twilight Shower was one of the Zone's holy grails. It couldn't be tracked or searched for, but every stalker hoped to stumble across it. I began to wonder if those accounts hadn't been a little rose-colored; it seemed like everything in the Zone had a hidden dark side. Nothing was ever what it seemed.

"And what would that be?" Velvet asked.

"We'll see, won't we?" The Morton Stalker shrugged. "But I've got a hunch. So do you. Don't you?"

Velvet said nothing to that. I could see her scuffing her boot in the dirt.

"It sounds like a hard choice," the Morton Stalker went on. "But it's not. You can take this deal and maybe still be alive at the end of this year, or you can walk away and die. You know you can't lead like this." Velvet looked up, surprised. "Who do you think I am?" the Morton Stalker asked, cocking his head.

"I don't know," she said.

He smiled and picked up the guitar. "You know you shouldn't be here the way you are," he said, and picked up the guitar again. "I'm here all night. Take your time." He started to play the intro to 'Mr. Jones.'

Now Velvet turned back and looked at me through the branches and the fireflies. This was just a formality. We both knew she was going to take the deal. If she had been able to speak with me, I'd have told her not to, and tried to convince her to leave with me. She wouldn't listen, and I wouldn't expect her to. I'd be wasting my breath, she'd know it, and I'd know it. But I'd do it anyway.

So I didn't do anything. I didn't gesture, I just returned her gaze. If it was a foregone conclusion, all I could do was back her play. I gave her a little shrug. We were both going to regret ever finding this weeping willow, and there would be plenty of tears before this year was over. Why fight it?

"All right."

"Good. Sort of." The Morton Stalker put aside his guitar and jumped to his feet, putting out his hand.

Velvet looked at it for several seconds, then locked her jaw and shook it. The Morton Stalker was gone, and Velvet was shaking hands with nothing. The willow and the fireflies were still there, but something in the air had changed. The invisible wall that kept me from getting closer to the tree was gone too, and I moved the hanging boughs aside to join Velvet inside.

"Well, what did he give you?"

"I don't know." She looked at her hands, frowning. Then she looked up me. "Him?"

I blinked. We had both seen someone – but we hadn't seen the same thing. I shook my head. "Never mind. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she replied, puzzled. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I could hear a few chords of 'Losing My Religion' on the wind. I opened my mouth to ask Velvet what she had seen and heard, but changed my mind. "He didn't give me anything. But I feel different."

"How?"

"Better."

"Your hat's crooked," I said, and reached out to fix the beret without thinking. She flinched away, then stopped. I'd stopped too. We stared at each other. "Are you kidding me?"

She licked her lips. "I don't think I am." I couldn't just reach out and do it; I'd seen this from her point of view, and felt what she felt. I held my breath and adjusted the beret, and the world didn't end.

"Well," she said, turning a little pink. "That is something, isn't it?"

I grabbed her and kissed her with everything I had.

Now I knew why all the stalkers who found the Twilight Shower told such rose-tinted stories. It wasn't about the catch, the cost, or the endgame. We were stalkers; if anyone in this world knows how to live in the moment, it's us. If there's something good in the here and now, that's enough. We deal with tomorrow's problems tomorrow. Maybe this was the only place in the world where things could be this way, where anything could happen.

After all, if I'd honestly answered Velvet when she asked what the odds were of us making out tonight, I'd have said it was impossible. We were living proof that it wasn't. Nothing was.


	23. Chapter 23

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 23

It was another sunny day in the Zone. We picked up another man on the road, this one an Englishman that a lot of people seemed to have heard of. They called him Exile. There were enough now that one man didn't seem like much, but it would be a while yet before Freedom could turn down help.

Things took a grim turn when after a brief stop to rest, we discovered one of the men missing. A search of the area quickly turned up his body, dragged behind a tumbledown shack.

Drained.

I'd seen the signs, and suspected that we were being trailed by a drinker unable to pass up this much fresh juice, but I hadn't been worried because I didn't think he'd have the audacity to strike us in force.

True, in a group this large, no one's guard was as high as it should have been – but Velvet was making sure no one lost focus completely. The change in her was subtle, but it was there. Just because her fear was gone didn't mean she was running around touching people, or even markedly more cheerful – but there was a confidence, and a wholesomeness coming from her that had not been there before, living in the place previously occupied by that psychotic edge that she'd been trying so hard to beat down.

People were more careful after we found that body, and Velvet started sending her scouts out in pairs, though there was no guarantee that would help. If a drinker had the guts to stay in the vicinity of this many stalkers, he'd have no problem jumping two men. It didn't help that the circumstances around the man that had been drained were strange to say the least. He had been a skilled hunter; he had plenty of drinker kills under his belt. How could one take him off guard, of all people?

I had a feeling something funny was going on, but at this stage of the race, Velvet was more concerned with the Dane than with mutants. The girls were always kept in the middle of the pack, and they, along with several of the shorter stalkers around them, were masked and cloaked like bandits. A sniper would have difficulty getting a clean shot on either of them, and even before they could do that, they would have to ID their targets.

Nobody would dare start a fight with a group this big, so if the Dane had a sniper on the job, that sniper had only one chance, because as soon as he fired, he'd have thirty stalkers after him.

But there were still plenty of ways to get at us, so we couldn't stop moving. Which brought problems of its own.

"My feet hurt," Tyrian complained. No surprise; they'd been sequestered at the brothel in Kevorich for days. There was only one kind of exercise there, and the two sisters weren't a part of it. It was funny to see them with gas masks on, and to listen to them talking about girly things with their voices muffled by the filters.

"Enjoy it out here while you can," I advised. They'd be stuck at Yantar when we got there, and forbidden to leave the compound. Soon after that they'd be taken away and hidden somewhere safe, where they'd also be stuck for a while. It wouldn't be long before they were both longing for a nice walk like this. But that was in the future.

The future wasn't a problem for Velvet, though. She was already talking to freelancers, putting hits out on the people after the two sisters. It would take time, and there were no guarantees, but Velvet was doing her best to protect them.

"Can't we go around these?" Tyrian asked, walking around the carcass of a particularly ugly boar.

"You are."

"Be glad we just have to deal with the dead ones," Russet said.

"When do we eat some real food?"

"Define real." I shouldered my rifle and checked my chrono. We were making better time today; I think Velvet's efficiency had risen with her confidence. She was also turning into a bit of a slave driver, but that was exactly what she needed to be. Grigor was for show; no one expected him to actually run things. It wouldn't do if people looked to him for all the answers. They needed to get used to Velvet, the sooner the better.

"Actual food," Tyrian said. Actual isn't a good way to define real, but I knew what she meant. Hot food that was cooked, and recognizable as having come from something that had once been alive, either plant or animal. Let's face it; none of us know what's in the calorie bars we're always eating. They're probably made of chalk or something.

"Not until we get there. It won't be long now."

"Man," she said, and I smiled. "I just want a sandwich."

"That does sound good."

"Yeah," Russet said. Stalkers want glory and logic-defying artifacts; we just wanted a sandwich, and we were the ones who couldn't get it. How was that fair?

"I want ham and swiss on mine. And lettuce and tomato," Tyrian said.

"I want turkey and hot sauce and bacon," Russet sighed.

"Peppered turkey pastrami, hard salami, pepper jack cheese."

"Ooh, that's good, Mist."

"Can't we just call him David?"

"Not here."

"That's dumb. Can we rest, I'm dying here. This is worse than yoga."

"I like yoga better," Russet said wistfully.

"You think we'll ever see her again?"

"Who?"

"Amy."

"Oh. I don't know. Maybe someday."

"You think she'd believe us if we told her we'd been here?"

"She might. She likes comic books."

"Yeah."

"What's that got to do with it?" I asked.

"Comic book people are more open to weird stuff," Russet said, as though it were obvious.

"It's true," Tyrian agreed.

"I don't disagree with that. But everybody's a comic book person now; the Christian Bale pirate Batman movies and the big Marvel movies are making everybody hype for that stuff," I said.

"Please tell me we're going to be out of here in time to see The Avengers."

"I doubt it," Russet said bluntly.

"You could be back in the world by May," I said. "It's not impossible."

"We'll still be in hiding."

"Only for a while."

"Where are all the cool monsters?" Tyrian complained. "All we see are these dogs and pigs."

"Want to see some fish people?" I asked.

"What?"

"Fish people."

I could hear Tyrian snickering in her mask. "There aren't any fish people," Russet said, laughing.

I sighed. "You do know one of our guys got killed by a mutant this morning, right?"

That sobered both of them; they knew, of course. And they were as disturbed as everyone else, because we still didn't fully understand what had happened. They were just glad to be in the middle of the pack, though the likelihood of anyone being attacked in broad daylight while the group was moving was slim.

Of course the odds of a seasoned hunter being taken by a drinker in daylight were slim too. But I'd decided not to worry about that; everything has an explanation, and getting stressed out usually doesn't help you find it.

"Can we rest now?" Tyrian gasped.

"Not until Velvet says so," Russet told her.

"Why doesn't she have to wear all this?"

"Because she doesn't have assassins after her," I said. At least, I hoped she didn't.

"She's so pretty," Tyrian said. "What's she doing here?"

"Running."

"What?"

"Never mind."

"Shouldn't you be walking out front?" Tyrian snapped. "Put that wide aspect ratio to work." Russet swatted her. "Ouch."

"This is the least politically correct place on earth, after all."

Russet laughed. "That's no reason to forget about manners."

"Are they going to fight at this new place?" Tyrian asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the fights. I like watching the fights."

"Oh." I thought about it. "They might do some bare knuckle stuff, but I doubt Velvet would let anything hardcore like the Kevorich fights happen on her watch."

"You could win every time," Russet said.

"Just because you can knock a guy down doesn't mean you should," I replied. "With great power comes…" this time she swatted me.

"That guy was really good," Tyrian said, flicking her eyes toward the Biker, who was walking toward the front of the group, not far from Velvet.

"I'll bet he was."

"They don't let that one fight at all." She nodded toward the Merc, also not far from Velvet.

"I don't blame them."

"That English guy is hot." I could see Tyrian's mask turn toward Exile. You get used to her sudden subject changes. "He might be the hottest guy of all time."

"Ask him on a date," Russet said, sounding exasperated even through the mask. A bullet hit her squarely in the chest; I saw it punch through the bandit coat. Simultaneously, another struck down Tyrian. They were both thrown down like rag dolls. Shocked, I watched them fall. It was only a second or two before we heard the echoes of the shots, and then every stalker turned and opened fire to the south, but the snipers were much too far away.

The Biker was kneeling by the fallen sisters, tearing off their masks, but when he saw them, he didn't even bother to check their pulses.


	24. Chapter 24

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 24

Reaching Yantar might have been a happy event under different circumstances. Finding it more or less deserted might have been even happier. So much for that. It was a subdued group of stalkers that carried the bodies of the two sisters into the Yantar valley.

The perimeter didn't take much securing; Duty had occupied the compound throughout the Incursion, and they had locked up behind them. There were a few dogs to be run off, and some questionable egg sacks in the high grass near the walls, easily burned, but otherwise it seemed clear enough. It took some work to unseal the doors, but we got them open, mainly due to the Merc's inhuman strength.

The Biker and I watched as the two bodies were borne inside. Many other stalkers watched with us. The others that Velvet hadn't set to watch were already building fires. It was very dark now, and from beyond the walls we could hear a variety of howls and cries. This sector had been virtually unwalked since the Incursion; no one had a clue what was out there.

I followed Grigor inside, and the Biker came as well. As Freedom men with shotguns checked the compound room by room, the others laid out the two limp bodies in the laboratory. Velvet closed the door once the Biker and I were inside. It was just the Biker, myself, Velvet, the Merc, Exile, Grigor, and the sisters.

"Christ you're heavy," Exile said to Tyrian's still form. "What did you have for breakfast, an ironclad?"

The girl's eyes snapped open, and she tried to say something, but it came out a croak.

"Give her something to drink," Velvet said, leaning on the table and letting out a long sigh. So we'd pulled it off – or so it seemed. Russet sat up with some effort and worked her neck and shoulders; they both had to be pretty stiff by now. She opened her coat to reveal both Kevlar body armor and Clint Eastwood-style makeshift plate armor.

Of course we'd anticipated the attempt on their lives while we were in the open; it was the logical time to do it, and the deception with the masks could never have fooled a good sniper for long. Height difference, the way that women walk – we couldn't hide that, not really.

This didn't mean that we'd beaten the Dane. This was only round one. We'd bought time, but we weren't kidding anyone. Velvet was taking the threat absolutely seriously, and she had a plan to keep the sisters alive – but there were no guarantees, and we were all on edge.

It had been a tricky plot; the sisters had needed to actually get shot. Not everyone had been in on it; just us, and a couple of people outside this room.

"That wasn't so bad," Tyrian said, frowning. She meant the actual impact of the bullet. And when you have half an inch of steel protecting you, that's no surprise. Playing dead had been the hard part.

The snipers had been forced to take their shot from incredible distance – you can't get close to a group as big as ours and expect to walk away with your life. That was why it had been safe to assume they'd aim for the body, not the head. Headshots would be unreliable at those distances, and these shooters knew they'd only get one shot.

Whoever the Dane hired had been good; the shots had been perfectly timed, and both had been dead-on.

As the sisters shared the Merc's canteen, I looked around the room. So this would be Grigor's lab. It was old and rusty, just like everything else in the Zone, but surprisingly decent. We didn't hear any shotgun blasts, so it was safe to say the others hadn't found anything objectionable.

Here we were. Home sweet home. The sisters wouldn't leave this room tonight; the rest of Freedom wouldn't learn they were still alive until tomorrow. This would increase the amount of time we'd bought ourselves, and possibly give Velvet enough time to line up their departure from the Zone. Even after everyone knew they were alive, they still wouldn't be allowed to go outdoors. This building would be a prison for them until the day they left the Ukraine.

On the rest of us, there were no such restrictions. Unfortunately, we had a long night ahead of us.

You would think that getting here, and doing so more or less in one piece, we'd have taken a rest, maybe even celebrated the birth of Freedom's new HQ. Wrong. So wrong.

Velvet was open to the possibility of attack at any time; it was possible that Duty was mobilizing at this very moment to put Freedom down before it could even be up in the first place.

No, we didn't have time to rest or celebrate. We had to harden this position. And with forty men, and a great deal of equipment brought from Kevorich, that's what we did.

First there were the minefields; there were four gates leading into the compound, and a road for each of them. We posted signs that clearly indicated only the roads were safe, but planted no actual mines. Land mines are filthy weapons, and Velvet felt they were beneath any organization that aspired to the moral high ground – but the threat of land mines? Well, that was okay.

Next came the sharpened stakes. I know, I was surprised too – I mean, this wasn't the middle ages – but the bottom line is that whether you have guns or swords, if you're attacking a fortification, having a lot of pointy sticks stuck in the ground, pointed toward you makes it harder to do that. This wasn't a bluff.

There were still small barriers made of sandbags, left over from when Duty had occupied the compound. Velvet supervised the mounting of powerful machine guns, and the welding of shields to protect the stalkers who manned them.

Others worked with machetes to clear a patch of hard ground just outside the walls, where helicopters would be able to land. Velvet was going to be doing a thriving business with the outside world, and this was not a convenient location to reach overland – particularly with the cordon in mind. Her dealings would be conducted by air.

There was a large pile of sandbags on the roof of the main building, and Velvet set the sword there, hilt-upward, I guess as a sort of symbol. From far away it looked more like a cross than a sword, but it was pretty cool either way. She promised to get to work sewing a Freedom flag as soon as possible, but until then, the sword would have to do.

It had come from Kevorich; some weapon-dealer had insisted she take it as a symbol of what she was doing. The men who joined her weren't the only ones glad to see Freedom back in business.

She sent out scouts to map in detail the valley and its surroundings, which were no longer to be taken for granted since satellite coverage had gone down.

My job was helping with some of the less interesting things – like putting up the large tents that would ultimately become the barracks, canteen, and home to the base's trader.

Inside, others were making the inside of the compound more habitable. There was more than one night's work to be done in that department.

Occasional gunfire was audible as we worked. Sentries fired shots from their sidearms to frighten off whatever was in the tall grass. The Merc was posted on the roof, not far from the sword, and he used a bolt-action .223 with iron sights to pick off several of the creatures stalking our perimeter.

I could sense the life around the compound. There was a lot of it. Now there were two men on the roof, assembling the antennae for the new uplink. Velvet was everywhere at once, doing a fair amount of shouting. Some men were assembling a mounted gun in the wrong place, so she shouted at them. Tyrian appeared at the doorway to the compound, and Velvet shouted at her, too. Someone saw her, and the secret was out. As the word spread, joviality returned to the Freedom stalkers in force.

Our little makeshift band finished their tasks and started to play. The other stalkers sang along as they worked. Someone convinced Velvet to oversee dinner, and she grudgingly gave in. It turned out her cooking had a bit of a reputation in the Zone, and for good reason. I hadn't eaten so well since I'd been in the real world.


	25. Chapter 25

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 25

We worked until dawn, and only then did Velvet post sentries and permit rest. Since I wasn't going to sleep anyway, I volunteered to go out and scout around a little. As the sun got higher, I walked the high grass, and climbed out of the valley. This was a tactical disadvantage; we'd have to put motion sensors or something up here to compensate for the dense foliage. There was also the cliff over the valley, on which the outer walls of the plant rested – but it was too irradiated to snipe from up there without the right kind of suit. Velvet had hinted that she had a plan to deal with it if it became an issue.

On the whole, the valley wasn't so bad. Being in a bowl-shaped depression carried with it some disadvantages, but we could offset those. Velvet intended to build a number of guard towers, and as long as we kept a couple of men on the roof and on patrol, we weren't really stuck on the low ground.

There were mutants lurking about, but none approached. They weren't sure what to think of me. The Merc's deadly aim had convinced them to stay away from our perimeter, and that was just as well.

Around midmorning, the first helicopter touched down. I watched from the ridge as they unloaded equipment and supplies. I probably should have gone down and helped, but I was too tired. I sat down against a tree and dozed. As long as I didn't sleep too deeply, the nightmares didn't gain much momentum. It wasn't great rest, but it was the best I was going to get. Sleeping exposed in the open would keep me from slipping into real slumber.

I caught a glimpse of the ghost before I nodded off. Not the Ghost, as in the knife-wielding phantom killer that the stalkers were all abuzz about – but rather the ghost, as in a ghost, an ethereal figure that I seen a couple of times. It was a stalker in black. That was all I could say. I'd seen him near the Biker, and near Ever, and even Velvet now. No one else could see him. He was probably all in my head.

When I woke it was dusk. I headed back into the valley; dark was falling fast, and the temperature was dropping. There were several crackling fires, and the Freedom band was playing again. Inside the walls, it looked much more like a base now. Jester, the Scot, was manning the quartermaster's tent. It wouldn't be long until a career trader would come here and work out a deal with Velvet to set up shop permanently, but until then, it was Jester's job. He was dealing less in ordinance and more in artifacts and cash; already stalkers were coming to Freedom to sell their findings.

This was a rich time to hunt artifacts in the Zone; the stalker population was at an all-time low, so more unclaimed artifacts were out there for the taking. It had two sides; fewer stalkers meant the Zone had greater strength, and that meant the hunting itself was more dangerous. But don't sleep on the stalkers; they were still out there, and these were good days. Velvet was going to make them better with her connections. Anyone who came to her to trade would profit – and they were coming. There was a tent, separate from the one for Freedom personnel, where loners and travelers could pass the night on a decent cot. It wasn't much, but it was more than Duty had ever offered anyone.

I got something to eat and went inside to see the sisters. I wasn't surprised to find them both already bored out of their minds. We ate together and talked about the real world, and wondered what was going on out there.

Though I hadn't realized it, apparently I was a Freedom officer. Velvet had sewed a patch indicating my rank, which meant nothing to me, onto my armor before returning it to me. I'd have preferred to continue doing more or less what I wanted, but Velvet wasn't having it.

Speaking of Velvet, I tried to get a word with her, but she was too busy shouting at someone over the uplink. Well, she couldn't avoid me forever, and she knew it. But that wouldn't stop her from trying. I went back to the sisters, who were chatting with Exile.

He was an Englishman – a real one, unlike Ever – and Velvet had seemed very pleased to get her hands on him. I assumed this was because of his reputation. He was explaining to the sisters how his exposure to certain secrets had made it necessary for him to hide in the Zone, and how the Zone had won him over. They had a hard time grasping why anyone would stay in the Ukraine by choice, and Exile was patiently doing his best to explain it. The girls were more hypnotized by his looks than his words.

I liked him pretty well. He reminded me a bit too much of Ever, but he was more down to earth. More likely to give you a straight answer than to make dark and droll jokes. I could sense that he had no particular designs here, which surprised me.

The girls wanted to go out and listen to the band, which had picked up a new member. Of course it wasn't going to happen, but that didn't stop them from complaining about it. We drank bitter Ukrainian beer and played cards instead. I think Exile let us win. The generator was up and running, which meant we no longer had to use flashlights and lanterns inside the building; the downside was that we had to listen to the snapping and crackling of the laboratory's lights.

Grigor was finally rested, and we could dimly hear him through the wall, cleaning up and salvaging the real lab. He had a lot to do before he could get to work studying his artifacts, but that didn't seem to bother him. In fact, he seemed pleased – I had a feeling that being in the Valley in the Forest had stunted his research a little.

Likewise, other stalkers were hard at work on Velvet's pet project, which was a shower with hot water, available to everyone, except for those times when it was reserved for women, of which we had three. Which was three more than anyone else in the Zone, except for Kevorich, but they don't count.

She now wore her green Freedom fatigues, which fit her properly, and I thought she looked better than ever. She had carried herself differently ever since her deal with the Twilight Shower. It was hard to put my finger on the difference, but it was clear a great weight had been lifted from her.

It was getting late, though things wouldn't quiet down outside – stalkers do sleep, but only in shifts. There would always be a guitar strumming, always people drinking and laughing in the canteen, and always a fire burning at Freedom. We were open twenty-four hours, seven days a week. The girls went off to their room to try to sleep off a little of the cabin fever, which would just be back tomorrow, and I played a few more hands with Exile.

"The older one's quite keen on you," he observed, once the sisters had gone. I didn't say anything to that; if he could see that much, then he must have noticed that Tyrian was quite keen on himself. No great surprise; Exile was a bit more refined and handsome than a lot of stalkers, though stalkers are always surprising me. For example, one of the Freedom men had apparently been a lawyer before crossing the cordon. It takes all kinds.

Russet's attraction to me wasn't all rational; I think a lot of it was the fact that I was a piece of the real world to her, a memory of the life she wanted to get back to. Maybe there was more to it than that. It was mutual; I liked her too. But my thoughts were elsewhere.

"That's it for me," I said, laying down my cards.

"Good night, Lieutenant," he said, though he pronounced it 'leftenant.' I rolled my eyes and strode from the room, going down the corridor to knock on the hatchway to the laboratory. There was no answer, so I went around the corner to the window. Grigor was in there, poring over some books. I knocked on the glass, and he looked up, then rolled his chair over and unsealed the hatch.

"I need your professional opinion," I said. We actually had a medic, but Grigor had seniority. He'd been around longer. He'd seen more.

I pulled off my glove and showed him my hand. It was time to show someone.

He looked puzzled. "What am I supposed to see?" he asked in English. I blinked and looked down at my palm.

"You can't see it?" But I barely finished the sentence. I couldn't see it either. The spot on my hand was gone. No, not gone. It had never been there in the first place. It was one thing to suspect it, and another to admit it to myself. This had never been about my hand; I had simply connected it to my encounter with that anomalous plant because I needed an explanation. Now I had one.

The Morton Stalker was on the other side of the window, in the corridor, his arms folded as he leaned against the opposite wall. I ignored him.

"Never mind," I said, and pulled my glove back on. I didn't want to see the look Grigor was giving me, so I turned away and stepped back into the hall. I had some thinking to do, but it was disturbed by the creaking of rusty hinges. I looked up to see an exhausted Velvet opening the door to her little room.

"Hey," I said.

She looked up and smiled tiredly. "Hey."

"Can we talk?"

She sighed. "Why not?" I followed her inside, pulling the door shut behind me. I didn't waste any time, I just pinned her against the metal bulkhead and kissed her. She kissed me back, pressing herself to me and putting her arms around my neck – but then she pulled back.

"I'm in charge now," she said, looking a little melancholy. "I have to be professional."

"You're right," I told her. "But you can start tomorrow." I was going to finish what I'd started the night before; I'd waited long enough, damn it.

She looked up at me, face very red. "All right," she said after a moment. "Though I've heard bad things about Americans."

"I'm Canadian," I said, and pulled her onto the cot.


	26. Chapter 26

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 26

It had been a while for both of us, but constant, shared, near-death experiences have a way of knocking the rust off. All the same, fatigues and holsters and armor weren't exactly made for this sort of thing. We were still in the fumbling around with buttons and buckles stage when the shout came from outside – but I'd been enjoying even that part, and I was upset to be interrupted like this. Again.

But Velvet sat bolt upright, and I narrowly avoided the inadvertent headbutt. Yes, yes – I knew – one of us would have to go and see what was going on. And it was going to be me. I pushed her back down. "Wait here," I told her, and she nodded, blushing.

The faster I took care of this, the faster I could be back. I went out into the hall, straightening my undershirt, which Velvet had been in the process of pulling over my head. I brushed my hair of my eyes and went out into the cold.

The band had stopped playing. Stalkers were clustered around one of the big tents, or rather, on either side of it. "What's going on?" Nobody paid me any attention, so I pushed my way through. "Come on, people – I'm the goddamn LT, apparently. Get the hell out of the way." I reached the front and stopped. "Son of a bitch," I said, and I meant it like I'd never meant it before. Velvet didn't need to know about this, not tonight.

There was a body in the dirt between the tent and the outer wall. It was dark back here, but several stalkers had their lights on the corpse. I didn't know this guy; he was one of the young men we'd picked up the day before, during the final stretch.

He'd been drained. The stalkers were all murmuring, and it was easy to understand why. For a moment I forgot all about Velvet, and that meant this was serious.

The gates were all manned. The wall was too high to jump, and couldn't be climbed. The drinker had to have come past the guards. Not impossible, just highly unlikely – or it had to have been here or along. Or there was another way into the compound.

I gave orders for the body to be dealt with, checked with the guards, and put together a team to scour the inside of the compound for any way in we could have missed. I'd have to check the inside of the building myself; access was restricted because of the sisters, and I couldn't just send a crowd of people in there.

Someone touched my shoulder, and I turned. Exile's eyes flicked down, and I looked to see that my belt was undone. When had Velvet done that? I fixed it and told him to make extra sure the watch was alert through the night. I'd been in the Zone only a couple of weeks and there I was, giving orders to more formidable men who had been there much longer. But Exile didn't seem to mind.

This wasn't something that could wait; it had to be dealt with now. I went to check with the guards, and Exile did the same. The band wouldn't play again tonight. You just can't let your guard down anywhere.

I met with Exile outside the main door to the building, which people were now calling HQ. "What do you think?" I asked.

You know, I really liked him a lot more than Ever. And he seemed to like me too. He turned and looked at a pair of the guards.

He folded his arms. "It's too early for any of them to be sleeping, and it's just the second night. I know most of these men. I don't think our friend got by them." He turned back to me. "That's a problem with this location – when there's no wind, we can smell the moors, and so we can't smell the drinkers. It's not still like this very often, but even so. It's dangerous."

"I know. I'm not worried about that, though. I'm worried about this drinker. He hit us on the road, now again. He's too brave. I don't like it. Even a group wouldn't come near this many men. What makes this one different?"

"Maybe he's insane. Or stupid. They have to have them."

"But he's not stupid, he's good. He has to be to keep taking people with so many of us around."

"Agreed," Exile said, nodding. "We've got to take him before this happens again. Shall we put out word for a hunter?"

"No. This thing'll have worked itself out by the time one could get here."

"You don't know that – there could be someone in the area."

"We've already got the best hunter in the Zone here."

"The Merc?"

"Who else?"

Exile shrugged. "Fair enough."

"You're cleared to be inside, right? Of course you are." I clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on."

He followed me in, to the window to Grigor's lab. We knocked, and he let us in.

"What's afoot?"

"There may be a drinker inside the perimeter. One of the rookies was drained," Exile told him. Grigor looked troubled. He was old, but he was still a stalker. He understood the logistics of the situation.

"What do you need?"

"Just this." I tapped the trap door with my foot. "Watch the door while we're down there."

"Nothing's gotten past me," Grigor said. "This door has not been opened."

"No, but the breach could still be down there."

He nodded, and I handed him Lunch Box.

"What about you?" Exile asked.

"No room for guns down there anyway." I unlatched the door and heaved it up, anxious to get this over with. I felt like Bruce Campbell about to go down into the basement of the Evil Dead cabin.

"Take more men," Grigor suggested.

"There's barely anybody we can even bring in here," I shot back. "And we'd just be tripping over each other anyway."

"There are rumors about this place," Grigor warned. "You've seen the locks. You've heard the stories." The second part was directed at Exile, who shrugged.

"I stay here because I want to see things no one's ever seen before," he said.

"The perfect Englishman," Grigor sighed, shaking his head. "The gentleman explorer, gone before his time."

"Your confidence sustains us," I said, gesturing for him to move aside.

The old stalker pulled a sheath off his belt and held it out.

"Where did you get something like this?" I admired the workmanship.

"My father took it from the body of a German officer he shot at Stalingrad. You'll find it quite sharp."

I hefted it, and pulled the blade out a bit a check the edge. It was far and away the best knife I'd ever seen. The Reich's emblem had been neatly scratched out. That was good; I wouldn't have worn it otherwise. Maybe with this I could tease Ever a bit, if I ever saw him again. Or maybe that would be in poor taste. Yes, it would be. But I'd carry it anyway. I attached it to my belt and turned to Exile. "Come on. I've got things to do."

"Of course, Leftenant."

"If you're English, why don't you speak English right?"

"If one of us isn't speaking it correctly, it isn't me."

Actually, that sort of made sense. "Whatever."

"How long should I give you before I seal it?" Grigor asked.

"It'll take as long as it takes." I tightened my belt and glanced at the door. "But I'm in a hurry, and I've had enough of the underground for a while." Grigor snorted. I meant for this to be fast; Velvet wouldn't wait forever. This came first. As long as there was an unsecured way into the compound, no one was safe. We had no choice but to do this, and do it now. Freedom's ranks had swelled, but not so much that we could lose men without a thought. Even one more drained was too many.

Velvet's faction needed a strong start, not a troubled one. Exile handed me a flashlight, and I checked to make sure it worked, then settled the knife at my hip.

"So who goes first?" I asked, looking down at the open hatchway. I probably don't need to tell you that a hatch in the floor of one of the oldest and most storied installations in the Zone didn't look very inviting.

"You do," Exile said without hesitation. "Being Leftenant and all." He gestured. "Leading from the front, you know."

"Ah, yes. Did you know I couldn't settle on a major in college?"

"What happened?"

"I dropped out."

"Shame on you."

"I know. What did you study?"

"Art history."

"Do all spies do art history?"

"Just the bad ones. You're stalling."


	27. Chapter 27

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 27

I dropped through the hatch, and got the surprise of my life when I landed in about three feet of stinking water. This was the crawlspace beneath the laboratory. There was only about five feet to stand up in, so I had hunch over a bit.

"Is it wet down there?" Exile asked, crouching at the edge and pointing his light down.

"What do you think?"

"Should I just stay up here then?"

"No."

He scowled and lowered himself into the water. "Oh, it's cold."

"What'd you expect?"

"I don't know."

"Don't shoot us by mistake," I said to Grigor, who gave me a tired look.

"Let's get on with it."

"I know," I snapped, shining my light around. It was not an open space. There were corridors of a sort going in all directions. They were thick with wires and pipes. It was absolutely dark. Where had this water come from? We needed to get this done; I didn't want to be down here any longer than I had to be. I raised my light, and Exile did likewise.

"So what are you?"

"What do you mean?" I asked without turning around. I didn't like the looks of these confined spaces.

"What are you? I'm a spy. The Biker's spetsnaz. Grigor's a professor. What are you?"

"I told you, I dropped out."

"That's not what I mean."

"I don't care what you mean."

The truth was that I didn't know; maybe I'd come here to find out. This just wasn't what I'd pictured.

"I'll just go this way then," he said.

"You do that." I picked a path and started down, humming the tune to Melancholy Hill as I sloshed through submerged debris. It was like struggling through that gross garbage compactor from Star Wars, except dark, and without enough room to stand. My light revealed a lot of strange things, but nothing threatening, and there were no signs of organic life. Just a lot of rust and metal.

I turned a corner, and the light from Grigor's lab was gone. Moving made too much noise; I could distantly hear Exile splashing around somewhere. If there was something down here that wanted a piece of us, it would be on top of us before we could hear it coming. Maybe it would have been better to bring a few more men.

I used the pipes on the walls to help pull myself along; I couldn't count on my footing, and I really didn't want to be immersed in this water.

Everything was intact. There were other hatches in the ceiling, but they had been permanently welded or otherwise sealed long ago. Only the one in the laboratory was still usable – that had been one of the first things we'd confirmed. If there was another exit down here, I wasn't finding it – but the crawlspaces were larger and more labyrinthine than expected.

I had the most beautiful woman on the planet, no exaggeration, waiting for me, and I was down here crawling around in this stinking water. What was I doing with my life?

I ran into Exile presently; we were going in circles down here. You could almost get lost.

"Better have a look at this," he said, waving for me to follow. I splashed after him. My flashlight flickered off. I whacked it on my palm a few times, because that's what you see people do – and to my amazement, it worked. The light sprang back on, and I caught up with Exile.

Grating in the floor allowed some of the water to drain off, and a raised platform housed another trap door, this one more sophisticated. Above was a hatch like the one in the laboratory, long ago welded shut.

"What do you suppose is down there?" Exile asked.

"I don't know. And we don't want to. The area's secure."

"Agreed."

"And this hasn't been opened in decades. We don't have to worry about anybody coming up this way. Our drinker got in some other way. Let's get out of here."

We did. Grigor slammed the door down behind us, and chained it up.

"We're going to weld that," I said. "And put down more steel on top. If there is a way through down there, we don't want the enemy getting creative about getting past our defenses."

"I'll see to it personally," Grigor assured me.

"Our drinker got in another way. Get the Merc up and put him to work," I told Exile. "Until he finds this thing and takes care of it, we'll all have to be extra careful. Something's up here – so make sure everyone knows not to go off alone if they can help it."

"Roger that."

Time for me to get back to Velvet. Exile headed out, and I made for Velvet's room. The Biker was in the corridor. He stood aside so I could pass, and I slipped by him, only to stop a few paces down. Since when did the Biker get out of anyone's way? And this was the Zone, and our shower was running, but the Biker certainly didn't smell this bad. I turned back.

"Hey," I said. The Biker didn't stop. "Stop." This time I said it with feeling. He did stop.

The door to his left – the door to the sisters' room opened, and Tyrian poked her head out, looking curious.

"What's up?" she asked, stepping into the hall.

"Nothing," I said, very tense. "Go back inside." The Biker was staring at her, and she noticed him.

"Why? Hey," she said. "Why do they call you the Biker when you haven't got a bike?"

"It's not him," I said.

"What?"

The thing turned and looked back at me. I could see now the eyes weren't right. Too dark, too flat. Not at all like the Biker's. Not at all like any human's. It was as tense as I was.

"What are you talking about?" Tyrian said, cocking her head. The thing turned back to her, and she saw the eyes. She took a step back, bumping into the wall. Fear was suddenly thick in the corridor, and that was the worst case scenario. It couldn't hold back; it lunged at her. I hit it with my shoulder, and the illusion was gone. We went down in a tangle of gray skin, claws, and waving tentacles.

Tyrian did the sensible thing and screamed – but I didn't have time to pay attention to anything else. Immediately there were running footsteps, but the two hundred pounds of teeth and muscle on top of me was all I was interested in. I might actually be the first stalker to punch a blood drinker in the face, and it wasn't a good idea. The tentacles around the creature's mouth were whipping around like crazy, and I couldn't get a solid hit.

It was trying desperately to get those tentacles close enough to latch on to my throat, and it took all of my strength to hold it back. There was no sense trying to communicate with this one – I wasn't sensing anything from it, there was no connection, and I had a hunch why, but I couldn't think about it now. I managed to get my elbow between us and roll over, but the thing kicked me off. My back hit the wall, but I was on my feet again. The beast leapt up and lunged at me. I caught it by the arm and used its moment against it, slamming it into the wall. I drove my palm into the elbow – or what I thought was the elbow, but it didn't break. I don't know if the joint was formed differently, or the bones were too hard, or what. It backhanded me so hard that I saw stars, and rammed me into the opposite wall with so much force I didn't know what to do.

Someone leapt onto its back, but it threw them off like they were paper mache. Even so, the distraction was enough for me to push it back and draw the knife Grigor had given me. No one could risk a shot; they might hit me, and there was too much danger of lethal ricochet. We had to do this the old fashioned away. I opened up a cut on the drinker's arm, but it barely noticed. Its next grab was overcommitted, and I managed to get behind it, hooking my arm around it like it actually had a neck. That was a bad idea, because the tentacles immediately sank in, and I could feel the powerful paralyzing agent starting to take effect. A normal man's arm would have been numb in seconds, but I still had a little strength left.

I plunged the German knife into the chest where the heart should have been, then on the other side, then pulled it across my best guess at a throat. One of my strikes must have done the job, because black and stinking blood flew as though from a geyser, and the thing toppled backward on top of me, slamming me against the wall, then sliding to the floor and pinning me beneath it.

But the fight was over. Blood continued to spew the wounds I'd inflicted, soaking me, the wall, and the floor. I was gasping for breath, but breath wasn't easy to get with the carcass on top of me.

The corridor was full of people, and I saw that Velvet, fully dressed, was one of them. Then that was settled; I wiped some of the black blood from my eyes; I wasn't getting laid tonight.


	28. Chapter 28

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 28

"It looked just like him," Tyrian said stubbornly, looking to me desperately for confirmation. I shrugged and nodded.

Velvet stared at us as though she we were playing a prank. Grigor was rubbing his chin. Exile was sitting in a chair groaning; he'd hit the wall pretty hard when the thing threw him off as he tried to intervene. He'd been giving me some funny looks. Maybe wondering where I got the strength to grapple with such a monster. I was glad he was too polite to ask.

"I don't see what's so hard about this," I said. "It's obviously how it got into the compound. It's the Americans – there were drinkers down there. They were working on them. We already know they can bend light, so maybe the Americans taught them how to do it better. You know they've never given up on active camo."

"Or bioweapons," Grigor added.

I snapped my fingers. "Exactly." But none of us knew that it wasn't the American government we'd encountered down there, just a little private company that Velvet would clash with a year later, halfway across the world. But that's not my story.

"My dissection of the drinker indicated it had spawned recently," Grigor announced.

"You think the eggs have the smart camo, too?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I could not guess. But it is possible."

"We get a Zone full of these things, and nobody's going to trust anybody ever again. It makes getting close almost too easy for them."

"Or maybe it'll just popularize deodorant," Velvet said in Russian, grinning. Grigor snorted. Exile smiled. So did I, after a moment.

The case was closed; we knew what had breached our perimeter, and how. We would just have to be more careful. It was now the small hours of the morning, and we all needed to rest. Velvet and I were doing a great job ignoring one another, and for the moment, that was for the best. I think we both had a lot to think about, and that was what I planned to do. It wasn't like I was going to sleep now. Maybe she would.

I went out to the canteen and got a bottle of vodka, then strolled around the compound a bit. I quickly became restless and went out, and though the men guarding the gate stared, they didn't say anything. I was an officer, and already stories were circulating about the LT that had killed a drinker with his bare hands. If anyone could go out into the valley with a bottle instead of a weapon in the dark, it was me.

It had been impulsive, going after Velvet that way. Kind of like a dam breaking after a long period of stress, which was an apt analogy. But that was only my side of it, and my side wasn't what mattered. Velvet was the one I needed to think about. There was no question that she had been game, and there was no question that she liked me.

But I wasn't kidding myself; she didn't care about me the way I cared about her. She had been willing because it had been a long time for her, and because it felt like a way to acknowledge that the burden really had been lifted from her. But that wasn't all. It was also about driving a stake through the heart of her past.

If Velvet just gave herself to someone she'd only known a few weeks, that might be the last nail in the coffin of the person she used to be. A full reversal was what she wanted – to become the opposite of what she'd been before. She'd do it just to make a point, to prove how strong she was, and how little it all meant to her. None of it was true, it was a façade. I didn't want her to kill her past, I wanted her to make peace with it.

And it was true of me, too. She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, and there was something magnetic about her, something no man, and probably a lot of women, simply couldn't leave alone – so of course I wanted her. I did love her. But I wasn't in love with her. Thinking about it rationally, I knew that outside the Ukraine, a relationship between us wouldn't last five minutes.

I could have Velvet if I wanted her, but was that the best thing for her, or for me? No. I couldn't just hand her the opportunity to force these changes. If she had it her way, the dark Velvets would overrun the city, and every last trace of resistance would be gone, leaving nothing but cold, ruthless efficiency. No memories, no sentiment, no love, no feeling. I couldn't let that happen, and sleeping with her would just bring it closer.

The best thing I could do for Velvet was to leave her alone. Even take it a step further and put some emotional distance between us. Staying absolutely celibate was the smart move for her as long as she was in charge, it wouldn't be easy, and I wouldn't be doing her any favors if I made it harder on her. I'm supposed to be Buddhist, but I can appreciate the Judeo Christian notions of temptation and sin, and how they applied here.

It was time for me to do the right thing for Velvet. She wouldn't thank me for it; it might even hurt her, but that was short term. In the long run, if there was a long run, at least I would have done my part to make sure that she left the Zone with a little humanity left. My mission had changed; I was less interested in protecting Velvet's body, and more concerned with her soul. You just never know what's going to happen in this part of the world.

I couldn't bring myself to be cold to Velvet, but I could keep things professional, like we both needed to do, for our sake and for that of Freedom. A week ago I wouldn't have thought I could keep my hands off her, but I was learning new things every day.

This was another turning point. They come and go in the Zone, and a lot of the time you don't even notice. Maybe at the end of this year, I would ask Velvet on a date. I knew we'd both be different people by then, if we were both still alive. It wasn't impossible, but I knew better than to make those kinds of plans. You can't even take the next hour for granted; anything more than that is insanity.

Morning dawned on Freedom HQ. Stalkers from across the Zone were showing up now to capitalize on Velvet's export racket. Rarely did a day go by when a helicopter didn't touch down, either to ferry away artifacts or unload supplies. Velvet wasn't hoarding the influx of cash; she was spending it as fast as she earned it, keeping it on the move and pouring it into PR-related things, all intended to draw more people to Freedom. And it was working.

She offered high pay by Zone standards, and perks and living conditions that even Duty didn't offer. Guard towers went up. Freedom personnel wore good armor and carried better weapons. The ranks continued to grow. The fortifications became more sophisticated, and Grigor's laboratory became increasingly sophisticated, all of this in just over than a week since we claimed the facility.

Duty was silent. Velvet believed that meant there was fierce debate going on about what to do, but there was nothing to do but wait and let them make their move. Velvet had her pieces in place to the best of her ability, but we all knew there were holes in our security – big ones. All of Velvet's precautions couldn't protect us from a fight, and a fight was what it would come to if Duty chose not to accept the new Freedom.

I planned to spend the morning helping train the rookies, and the afternoon inside, playing Monopoly with the sisters and Exile. Exile would win, and I would wonder if he was cheating, just like yesterday. Things were awkward between Velvet and me now; she wasn't sure what I was up to. I wasn't giving her the cold shoulder, but I wasn't taking any opportunity to kiss her passionately, or steal her away to a private place. She didn't know what to think, and that seemed to hurt her feelings, but a part of her saw the wisdom of this course as well. It hurt to see her uncertain and vulnerable, but this was what had to happen. Things were getting better between us every day; I think now we were becoming more like real friends, and I couldn't complain about that. Lately she'd been giving me assignments kept me near the base, I think in the hopes that I'd make another move – she would, of course, never make one herself – but she was picking up on it now, and it was only a matter of time before she decided to make the most of one of her best men. And that was fine.

Things were secure at HQ; at least, as secure as anywhere in the Zone. I didn't need to be there all the time to protect her; she wasn't helpless, and the men around her certainly weren't. The men of Freedom were happy. The people who dealt with Freedom were happy. The men outside the Zone, whose arrangements with Velvet made all of this possible were happy.

The only ones not happy were Duty.


	29. Chapter 29

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 29

The good news was that after I took out the Imposter – that was what everyone was calling the drinker that could disguise itself – there were no more incidents in the compound. Indeed, the Imposter had been the one tracking us from the Channel, and it had been the one to kill and drain both our hunter and our rookie. We all knew how it had gotten close enough to strike now, and how it had been able to take its time and pick out the opportune moment.

The bad news was that there were rumors from other parts of the Zone of incidents that sounded not too different from what we'd dealt with. It sounded like more than one Imposter had escaped from that facility, and they were hungry.

Now that I was more or less stationary at HQ, it became less about what I saw, and more about what I heard. Stalkers were streaming in and out of the compound now; we had a trader, the best food and accommodations in the Zone, and pretty much anything anybody could ask for – and since we had the best rates for artifacts, the most daring artifact hunters, the ones who would go even to the darkest corners, were passing through regularly.

Kevorich and the Bar had fallen to second and third place; Freedom HQ in the Yantar Valley was now the unchallenged center of gossip in the Zone. Velvet, now free of some of her mental shackles, had consented to don a specially-imported bathing suit, and pose for a photograph to be used for Freedom's new recruiting poster. It was a hit; you couldn't go anywhere without seeing one.

And the rumors. The Ghost, whom I was quite certain I'd seen at least once – that thin man with the crows and the drinkers and the artifacts, though that seemed a very long time ago – had apparently cut some people up. There was always a new rumor about him, but most of them didn't have anything to them. Pretty much anybody could turn up dead, and if it wasn't a gunshot or teeth that had done it, people cried the Ghost.

There wasn't much word about Duty. They were patrolling and recruiting as usual. There were some hints that they were gearing up, but nothing credible. I know Velvet had spies, but I didn't know much about them, and I was okay with that. There were also spies among us; anybody could come into the compound. Not into HQ, of course, but there was no doubt that some of these stalkers were working for Duty. But the good thing about the Zone is that once you've been there a while, you get to know everyone, and so people that were too well-known to be faithful to Duty couldn't show their faces at Freedom HQ without raising eyebrows.

Even so, Velvet was playing a lot of things close to her ample chest, and for good reason. Duty could use new people, they could hire mercs, they could do anything. Her open door policy went both ways – it made it easy for new friends to come to her, and enemies as well.

There were ninety stalkers sworn to Freedom by the end of the second week, and Velvet was starting to think about another base. It was clear she wanted Exile or the Biker in charge, and the Biker wouldn't do it, so it looked like I wouldn't be the only officer for long. Then I could call Exile leftenant and see how he liked it.

Ninety sounds like a lot, but it's not. We'd need twice that many before we could have another base, and that would be spreading thin – especially with Duty apparently still on the fence. It might also be taken the wrong way; Velvet had to play her PR very carefully right now. We hadn't seen or heard anything about Ever, either – and that seemed to make her uncomfortable. I gathered he was the kind of guy that had the tendency to be in the headlines.

Days came and went, money, artifacts, and equipment changing hands. Patrols and assignments, shipments and rumors. Velvet's popularity did nothing but grow, though she actually showed her face outside HQ relatively little. That was a safety concern; until she had time to cultivate her officers, she was the core of the operation, and like Grigor, a high-value target.

Sometimes the band would convince her to come out at night and sing a song with them; a little known fact was that she had a beautiful voice, and was very shy on stage. There was a running joke that many stalkers would watch her perform, then rush off to Kevorich.

She was also an excellent cook, and her hand-made dumplings were especially beloved. They were accruing quite a street value, because she wouldn't take the time to make them very often. She'd boil them in a barrel, and only one barrel at a time, so they commanded a high price.

"Sometimes I wish I could go with them," Tyrian said, peering through one of the slits in the armored window.

"Uno," I said, throwing down my penultimate card. She turned back to the game. It wasn't the first time she'd said something like that. Russet had similar sentiments, though she was careful not to voice them. It was partly because they were stuck here, and partly because the Zone had its hooks in both of them now.

People come here for a lot of reasons, but most of them stay for the same one. There are other things like the adrenaline addiction, and the desire to get rich, but those don't look as good on the tourist brochure.

The sisters wanted to go and explore for the sake of it, and just to get out of this room, but it wasn't going to happen.

There was another part of being at the base that we'd all forgotten about: waiting for everyone else to come home. Just because everything was great at Freedom HQ didn't mean we weren't still in the middle of the most dangerous place on earth. And our friends were heading out into it every day.

Today, we were worried about Exile, who was overdue. I wasn't worried. Russet was a little worried; the Englishman was growing on her. She seemed a little smug when she talked about him, as though she knew something the rest of us didn't. Tyrian had been continuing to fall for him, and she was the one who was really stressed. It was all Russet and I could do to keep her from bouncing off the walls. Giving her beer helped. There's no age limit in the Zone, and it's not like we had her pounding absinthe. A few drinks mellowed her out and made her less likely to claw at the walls.

She wanted to see Exile, and I understood that. I wanted to see him too. But things happen out there; you get delayed. It had happened to me and to others, and it just came with the territory. Yesterday I'd headed out with some rookies to take ammunition to the Merc, who was camped in the forest on the ridge, working to make the area surrounding HQ a little less hazardous in terms of mutants.

One of those extremely lengthy emissions had kept us from getting back until nearly eight hours after we had been supposed to return. It was just one of those things.

Eventually Tyrian went to bed, leaving me with Russet. Normally Velvet would have been with us this time of night; she set aside an hour before she went to bed for relaxation. She would play with us, or read a book and have a drink. Tonight she hadn't showed up. That meant she was either extra busy or extra tired; neither was unusual. Don't look at me like I'm slacking off; whenever they were outside their bedroom, someone was supposed to be with the sisters. They had to be guarded, and there was no better guard than me.

Under the surface, Russet was both cheerful and melancholy. She felt the tug of the Zone, and the danger. She felt the responsibility of protecting her sister in these dangerous times, and she felt sadness knowing that soon she would leave. Velvet's plans were in place. In two days, the sisters, under heavy guard, would be transported out of the Zone. Velvet's plan for their hiding on the outside was as close to airtight as could be reasonably expected. Part of Russet would be glad to go, and part of her wouldn't. Velvet would, from inside the Zone, be her agent. She would put out contracts on the men who would benefit from the sisters' deaths – at considerable risk to herself, I add – and when last one was fulfilled, Russet and Tyrian would be free to go back to their old lives. This ugly chapter could be over in as little as a year.

And my year would be over even before then. She leaned down a little to look into my eyes.

"Is it Velvet?" she asked.

I blinked and focused on her. "Hm?"

"Velvet?"

I shook my head. "She's not my type." And that was true; she wasn't. But it's never that simple. Russet smiled at me.

"You should get more rest," she said.

"I'm okay," I told her, and it was true. I was.


	30. Chapter 30

Dirge Danorum

Chapter 30

Exile's team of scouts returned the next morning. I emerged from my cramped little officer's quarters feeling pretty rested, despite not having done any actual sleeping. Exile and his men looked grim, but they were all whole. I couldn't even smell gunpowder on them, so it looked like whatever had them on edge hadn't been physical peril.

It was morning, and Freedom HQ was already bustling like a bazaar, which after a fashion, it was. Exile's team pushed their way through to me. He put his hand on my shoulder and leaned in to be heard. "Intel," he said.

"Go on in, I'll find the Biker."

The Biker refused the offer of one of HQ's small rooms, and slept in the loner barracks tent with the rest of the marauders. The rooms, though small and rusty, were a coveted luxury; private rooms in populated areas were hard to come by. But he didn't want one. He was still asleep, arms behind his head, feet crossed on the end of his cot. Empty bottle leaning against his chest. I shook him awake and brought him back to HQ, where Velvet was also entering our lounge/meeting room. Hey, it had a table. She was dressed, but damp, and toweling off her hair.

I watched the Biker. It wasn't like I hadn't noticed the way he looked at her. This was nothing new. But now I wondered if he wasn't just looking at her hair. I was starting to think that maybe he had a thing for blondes.

Still toweling, Velvet sat down at the table. Exile was the only one who seemed to be immune to her beauty, so he put down his rifle and pack, and started to talk. His men had been scouting to the north, keeping an eye on Duty.

He confirmed that they were bringing in both men and weapons, but Exile was convinced that something wasn't right. For one, they had more than enough equipment and manpower to assault Freedom HQ and win – they'd had it weeks ago, but still hadn't done it. He shared his suspicions that they had something else in mind for this gear. The details weren't very encouraging.

They had two Hinds, an entire fleet of jeeps, and were working on what appeared to be a home-made APC prototype. Duty was keeping busy. This was why there was so little said about them around the Zone right now; their attention was turned inward.

Velvet took all of that in. She wasn't particularly worried about the vehicles themselves; she had countermeasures for all of them. What bothered her was that Duty was suddenly much more well-funded than it had been previously. Her own excellent business plan had given her an edge, but she had been hoping for more. Freedom had come back strong, but Duty was also making changes. The gap was still narrowing, but not quickly enough. She wanted to know where Duty's eye was turned. If not on her, then where?

She had sent men back to the facility we had emerged into after our narrow escape our Lovecraftian subterranean friends, but the entrances had been sealed with explosives. The place was a caved-in tomb, now. So that couldn't be it – but that was one of things we were learning: the Zone wasn't a big place, but there were always things going on that we didn't know about, and that was something we just had to live with.

The meeting adjourned on a very gray note. The tension had eased for a while, when Duty failed to attack during our weakest moments, but things were still ambiguous. This little arms race put an unhealthy spin on the whole thing. Something dark was coming, something even Velvet couldn't foresee, and it had her worried.

I passed Russet in the corridor. She could sense our worry, but she was leaving the Zone tomorrow. Our worries weren't her worries. She and her sister had their own. I gave her an encouraging smile and touched her shoulder as I went by.

I went up to the roof and leaned on the sandbags, looking down at the compound. Men were singing in the canteen. There were two rookies by the fire at the east gate, roasting marshmallows. I could smell sizzling pork and fresh bread.

Overhead, crows flew in circles about Freedom HQ, something many stalkers considered an ill omen. No one seemed to notice it today. Time in the Zone is funny; underground, the minutes become hours, and the days become lifetimes. Up here, surrounded by friends, the days fly by like bullets. Almost before I knew it, the sun was going down, and everything slowed down with it.

Lights appeared on the road; pairs and trios of stalkers making their way to safe haven for the night. Freedom welcomed them gladly. The trader emptied out, and the canteen filled up. The fires were built higher.

In the distance, I saw a red light floating, far off. One of Duty's choppers flying into the murky night. Above, the stars shone down on a Zone that was new to everyone, especially those of us who were in it.

Lightning flashed and crackled on the horizon. Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant hadn't changed. It stood at the heart of the darkness, a reminder of what the Zone had been, and a persistent harbinger of what was to come. The wind blew, and sparks flew from the fires below.

There was routine now, in the base. I knew it well. Shortly the band assembled and started to play. They played all sorts of things. Russian and Ukrainian songs I'd never heard of. Classics from Elvis and the Beatles, contemporary hits. Whatever they felt like. I could sit up here and listen to them for hours.

I heard a footstep behind me, and turned to see Russet.

"You're not supposed to be up here," I said.

"It's totally dark."

That was true; there was no light to speak of on the roof. There were no snipers up here anymore, not since we finished the towers, which were much higher, and better in every way. She was perfectly hidden. I decided to let it slide, just this once. The sisters were always complaining about not being able to hear the band properly, though it looked like Tyrian was missing out.

Russet came over to sit on my lap, and I put my arms around her. This had never happened before, but it felt natural enough. In fact, I think it felt inevitable since the first time we'd seen each other in the Zone.

"Worried about your year?"

"Not really."

"I'm worried about mine."

"So am I."

There was some commotion below, and we both fell silent and looked down. Velvet was being pushed toward the band. Someone was waving one of her posters. I smiled. She put up her hands in a defensive gesture, and said some words I probably could have guessed, but it was no good.

"Oh, all right," she said finally, and a mighty cheer went up from every stalker in the camp. Velvet reluctantly joined the band, which immediately used their keyboard to play a piano intro that everyone recognized. Velvet clasped her hands behind her back, and began to sing Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner, a Freedom HQ favorite.

I held Russet, and we watched as they played. If you've never heard that song sung by a heavily-accented Norwegian female, with backup vocals by a Ukrainian, a Frenchman, and a Russian, then you're missing out. You really are.

On nights like this they could probably hear the cheering all the way at Duty HQ. These days, even on a slow night there were well over two hundred stalkers at Freedom.

"You'll call me when you're out, won't you?"

"Count on it," I said.

"You won't do anything dangerous, will you?"

"With you guys gone, I'll probably have to do real work. No more Jenga duty."

She sighed. "I wish we could stay."

"No, you don't. That's just Chernobyl getting into your head. You'll feel better once you're out." I wasn't sure that was true; I'd heard that people left the Ukraine, only to be irresistibly drawn back. I hoped that wouldn't be true of the sisters, and I wasn't too worried. They hadn't been here long enough, or seen the things that really sink the Zone's claws into a person. "You're just used to it. Wait until you've got things like private bathrooms, delivery pizza, and cable TV again. You won't want to come back."

She laughed. "Maybe you're right."

The stalkers were crying for an encore. A few were holding up lighters. Velvet agreed to do one more, but only after swearing up and down that this was it. There was another cheer, this one the loudest yet.

"She's got a beautiful voice," Russet said. I thought Velvet had a beautiful everything, but I wasn't going to think about that. Certainly not tonight. How appropriate; the band began to play A Change Is Gonna Come. We listened to Velvet sing that, and many more.

I woke with Russet in my arms. That surprised me less than the fact that I woke at all. I had been asleep, really asleep, and dreamless. I felt rested, a feeling I'd all but forgotten. I marveled at that for several moments, and even the rusted walls of my little room looked good in the pale morning sunlight that filtered through the slits high in the wall.

Russet stirred, and her eyes opened. Her face was very close to mine, and she saw me, then the light. "Oh no," she said, smiling in spite of herself. "I meant to sneak back into our room. She's going to kill me."

I tried not to laugh. "For all you know, she spent the night with Exile."

"Oh, please. You know he's gay."

I blinked. I hadn't known that. Actually – er, I felt very awkward now, thinking back on some of our interactions. Now it was her trying not to laugh. I got over it. And today she was leaving; I didn't want to let her go. There was some very unhurried kissing, but we finally got up and dressed. Russet headed back to her room for fresh clothes, and I went outside to find the Biker and discuss security for moving the sisters. I found him just outside the loner tent.

The scream was one more thing I'd never be able to make myself forget. The Biker and I rushed back into HQ, and Exile and Velvet both appeared, and so did everyone else, even some people who weren't supposed to be inside, like Sagaris, but no one cared that morning.

Russet was on her knees in the small room she shared with Tyrian. Her sister's body was on the bed. The walls were splattered with blood dried blood.

I dropped down and grabbed her, turning her away from the carnage. No one said anything. As I sat there holding her, thinking that this was probably what it felt like to be in shock. I wondered if they had waited until their last day on purpose, or if it had just played out this way.

The Dane had found a way.

Dirge Danorum – END

[Author: but of course the story isn't over, just this arc; it'll pick back up with SPEAKER FOR THE ZONE very soon, both here and on the Zone blog. If you're enjoying the story, leave a review or a comment, stop by the blog (pseudozone dot blogspot dot com), check out Atrophy, my site ( silverbaytimes dot com ), if you like Velvet and the Biker, consider checking out some of the stories about them outside the Zone, but most of all, let me know what you think. Thanks so much for reading; I hope you'll stick around. –Wish]


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